


Shy Away From You

by Rheehemoth



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 15:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6381940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rheehemoth/pseuds/Rheehemoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After leaving Karakura Town for too long a time, Siren has returned, back to her best friend Renji, with a brand new job at a graphic design company. One of the employees, Hisagi Shuhei takes quite an interest in her, and she in him... A modern AU fic with a few different pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pleasantries

**Chapter 1 - Pleasantries**

_Ring ring...ring ring...ring ring..._

The sound of the phone ringing over and over irritated her every time she heard it. She was about to snap, but finally the person answered the phone.

"God damn, what were you doing that stopped you from answering the phone?" she said with anger that she couldn't completely muster into her voice. She hadn't spoken to him in so long.

"Sorry, I'm at _work_ and I had to get out of the office to answer my phone." he said in his usual gruff voice, and he clearly couldn't muster any anger either and she could almost hear the smirk in his tone.

"Well, I was going to keep it a surprise, but it doesn't really matter since I was going to call you back because you left a message last night anyway." she spoke off-handedly as if she didn't have huge news, but she knew he would probably die once he heard it.

"Surprise? Well, you know I don't really like surprises. Especially yours..." he trailed off, clearly remembering good old times from the past.

"You'll like this one. I'm moving back." she explained simply, enjoying the shocked silence from the other end.

"Shit, really?" he asked, blatantly shocked by her statement.

"Yes, really. I'm actually just about to start the drive back now. I was just going to track you down and rock up at your place, but since you left a message last night, I just decided to let you know anyway."

"Do you have a place to stay and everything?" he inquired, wondering if she was just being impulsive and deciding to move back just because.

"Yeah, I bought a place and sold my old place up here. And I've got a good job lined up too." she assured him, letting him know that everything was sorted out. If she needed him for anything, he would already know it.

That was just the kind of relationship they had. If they ever needed each other, it didn't matter that she currently was 4 hours away. They would both without a second be there as soon as they could if they had to. It had always been like that. There was time when they were kids that they would sneak out of their window at 3am just to meet each other in the park because they felt the need to.

"Well, that's good. I was going to say that you could have just stayed at my place. Hell, you know that you didn't even need to move! I make enough money each week that would have supported us both if you had wanted to move in." he replied, sounding relieved that she had organised everything before leaving.

"And how many times will you tell me this before you remember that it's in the past now?" she retorted with a smile on her face, glad to know that he would have looked after her.

"Never mind that now. Just hurry up and come back! I'll try and leave work as early as I can. Text me when you get back, and tell me your new address." he said happily, knowing that he should probably be getting back to work, but not really caring at the moment.

"Sure, will do. I'll talk to you soon, Aka Pine." she bid him goodbye, making sure to use that nickname that always managed to annoy him, even though he still loved it at the same time.

"Bye Siren."

She hung up the phone after hearing him saying goodbye. With a deep breath in and out, she locked the front door of what was, as of now, her old place and got in her car to start the four hour drive back home, and back to her best and only friend.

* * *

After only stopping to drop off the key to her old place to the real estate and once for a quick bite to eat and to fill up on fuel, she had arrived back in Karakura Town within 3 hours and 56 minutes. She slowed down as she drove along the familiar roads that she hadn't seen for a very long time. Luckily enough, she didn't need directions to know where her new place was, since the building was just being finished when she had left.

The woman had taken the smart option and texted Aka Pine when she was about 20 minutes from arriving so he could have more time to get off work, and she saw his fancy new car and he was leaning up against the driver's door, looking a bit disgruntled.

She pulled up just behind his car, hers paling in comparison to his shiny, clean new looking car to her 6 year old one. He definitely was making some serious money off his job. Gracefully, she stepped out of the car, contrasting with her appearance consisting of black and white tribal print pyjama pants and a band shirt with bare feet.

His unhappy face disappeared instantly when he saw her, and a big grin replaced it. They walked towards each other, and she jumped into his arms and hugged him as tightly as she could.

"Renji!" she said loudly while she hugged him.

They laughed for a minute, just so happy to see each other and started talking about various things immediately as if they had been hanging out every day recently, when they actually hadn't seen each other for over 4 months.

"You look great!" she commented after he put her down, taking note that his spiky hair had grown a fair bit.

"And you look stunning, even in your pyjamas and a band shirt." he bounced right back at her, and followed her back to her car.

Without even realising it, he began helping her take all her things up to her new apartment, which luckily was only on the second floor. It didn't take them long – with his help – to bring everything inside, and he noticed that the place was already furnished.

Apparently the movers had already fixed this part up yesterday, before she had even got there. They ended up going out and buying a whole bunch of groceries to fill the fridge and cupboards, and before they knew it, they were sitting around watching a random movie after setting up all the electrical stuff in the house. Soon enough, it got late and Renji took his leave.

"Hey, how about I stay over tomorrow night or something, since it'll be Friday. We can have a few drinks, catch up some more, you know." he asked, hoping that she would say yes, even though that hanging out with him and drinks being involved was always a yes from her.

"Of course. I'll only be out for a while tomorrow going to check out this new job, then I'll be back here settling in." she confirmed, glad that he asked.

"Alright, well I'll come over after work then. Night Siren." he said as he gave her a brief but tight hug goodnight and walked down the hallway.

After he was out of her sight, she shut and locked the door and made herself a drink for a nightcap. She had to be up early tomorrow to go to her new job, but it was really only for pleasantries sake, so she could meet the boss and whoever else was in that day.

Quickly, she jumped in the shower and changed into some fresh pyjamas and set her alarm before curling up in bed, sighing loudly and eventually falling into a comfortable sleep.

* * *

At exactly 8.45 her alarm woke her with the sound of the local radio station. She turned it off and dragged herself out of bed, thoroughly annoyed with the morning already, just for the simple fact that it was morning. Mechanically, she made coffee and drank it whilst listening a CD of one of her favourite bands to drown out the silence of the apartment.

When she finished her coffee she started getting a nice tidy outfit consisting of long black pants and a white button up shirt with a light but fancy jacket out of her closet and slowly pulling it on. She had even decided to wear a pair of heels today, just to make sure she wasn't going to be under-dressed when she met the boss. Overdressed was fine, it just showed that she was prepared.

She did up her heels, and walked into the bathroom. As much as she didn't really want to, she applied a little bit of foundation and a light smudge of eye liner to enhance her shockingly green eyes. Lipstick was too much for her, and she didn't even own any anyway, so she just nodded when she was satisfied with her appearance, gave her shoulder length black hair a quick brush and by then it was time to go.

The woman walked through her house, making sure she hadn't forgotten anything and grabbed her glasses before walking out the front door, and checking to make sure it was locked. The door to the apartment two down from hers was open, and a man maybe in his 30's was standing in the doorway as if he was waiting for something.

He gawked at her as she walked past, mostly because she probably looked pretty good this morning thanks to all the extra effort she'd put in and partly because he hadn't ever seen her before. She could feel him looking even as she walked all the way to the end of the hallway and finally turned left to go to the elevator. Normally she'd use the stairs, but she was wearing heels for Christ's sake.

She walked to her car, and began to drive over to the address she had been given for the company. It was called Seireitei Graphic Design, and obviously enough, it was a graphic design company. One of the most popular in the region in fact.

Siren was quite the artist, so going for a job like this wasn't too hard to get once she had showed the boss, who's name was Ukitake Jushiro, her work. Apparently, he was a very kind and generous man, with quite a fatherly aura about him. She'd picked up on that the moment she had begun talking to him over the phone. He had been ecstatic to see that she was interested in working there since one of their previous employees had just moved overseas with their partner.

It only took her about fifteen minutes tops to arrive there, and the clock on her car said that it was 10.33am. Perfect timing. Ukitake had seemed pretty casual about asking her to show up then, but she wanted to be prompt. She got out of the car and walked up to the front door and saw who she assumed to be Ukitake waiting at the front desk for her.

He had long white hair, and a bit of a sickly appearance, but as soon as he noticed her, a very kind and genuine smile came over his face and she felt at ease.

"Tetsuya Ikazuchi, I presume." he asked in a statement, his voice sounding much smoother in person than over the phone.

"Indeed. It's a pleasure to meet you Ukitake-dono." she replied, trying to sound very respectful and professional at the same time.

"Oh, please my dear. There's no need for honorifics. We all work together closely here, and we all know that everyone respects everyone else. Most of us refer to each other by our first or last name, depending on our preferences. Do you mind if I call you Ikazuchi?" he asked kindly, not wanting to displease her after just meeting her.

"Well, I usually go by Ika, and I would only feel comfortable calling you Ukitake, at the least." she answered politely.

"Not a problem then. Let's go have a tour of the office, shall we?" he smiled at her, and she nodded in response.

"Firstly, this is our secretary's desk. She isn't in today, but her name is Ise Nanao. Then here's my office right here, and you are always welcome inside." he said as they walked past the first door on the left.

"Next, we have our break room, which people usually spend most of their free time in." he commented with a smirk that said that he was one of those people. "And here is our first main area, with two of our employees who are very eager to meet you. Rukia, Rangiku, would you mind coming out here for a moment?" he said loud enough for the two women named Rukia and Rangiku to hear him.

A stunning, curvy, blonde haired, blue-eyed woman came out from behind her desk first, and she was much taller than Siren, even with her heels on. She smiled politely and the woman beamed happily at her.

"I'm Matsumoto Rangiku! Pleasure to meet you." she exclaimed with charisma coming out of her ears. This woman was clearly going to be fun.

Then, a much smaller woman came out from behind her desk, with black hair, shorter than her own and big, violet eyes.

"I'm Kuchiki Rukia. It's nice to meet you." the woman introduced herself politely, and gave Siren a small smile.

"Tetsuya Ikazuchi, but please call me Ika." she replied, glad to see that these two seemed to be nice and welcoming. Rangiku was almost buzzing with joy and curiosity.

"So, where are you from?" the blonde asked, wanting to know everything about their new work mate.

"I'm from here actually. I just moved back." Siren answered, getting happier and happier by the minute. If things kept going like this, she would just keel over and die that she found such an awesome job.

"Awesome! And by the way, you really don't need to dress up around here. One of the perks of the job. But I really do like your heels..." Rangiku trailed off with a finger on her chin as she checked out Siren's shoes.

It wasn't until then that she noticed the women were wearing pretty casual clothes. It seemed that in this work place, being comfortable and relaxed was the most important thing.

Abruptly, she noticed Rukia had an eyebrow raised in confusion but it wasn't at her. Following her gazes trajectory, she turned around to notice...him.

It was... _Renji?_

"Siren...What the fuck are you doing here?" he blurted out, but quickly covered a hand over his mouth after realising that he cursed in front of his boss. Ukitake actually laughed and didn't seem phased by it at all though.

"This is where I'm going to work, Aka Pine. What are you doing here?" Siren retorted sharply, also forgetting that her new boss was right behind her.

"I work here!" he said loudly.

"Well then. Now we'll be working together." she chuckled a little at the realisation that the world could be such a small place sometimes.

Renji suddenly realised that everyone was completely confused about what had just happened, and he quickly explained that they were old friends while scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

From behind the wall and behind Renji, a blonde man appeared, looking a bit gloomy, but confusion was much more prominent on his face.

"Ah, Kira. This is our newest employee, Tetsuya Ikazuchi, or Ika." Ukitake spoke up, gesturing to the woman standing on his right.

"Nice to meet you Ika. I'm Kira Izuru." he said, with his visible dark blue eye focusing on her, the other one being hidden by a long lock of blonde hair.

"You too." she replied simply, nodding in his direction.

"Hey, Hisagi. Come and meet the new girl." Renji called out, slightly exaggerating the 'new girl' part in mocking. Siren just quickly poked her tongue out at him in response.

Suddenly, a tall, dark skinned man, with hair as black as her own walked out and leant up against the wall. He had dark eyes, and two tattoos on his face, one being a small strip across his nose, and the other being the number 69, which made her eyes widened quite perceptibly when her mind immediately recalled the sexual side of that number. Even with all that, he looked very...very...attractive. And it seemed that he was checking her out.

"Oi! Don't you go checking her out without even introducing yourself." Renji mock-scolded, but he was giving Hisagi the look that said 'Go on, talk to her'. He had noticed Siren checking him out as well, even though she hadn't made it anywhere near as obvious, and he probably only noticed because he knew her so well.

"Tetsuya Ikazuchi, but call me Ika. Pleasure to meet you."

Hisagi chuckled nervously and scratched back of his head before he spoke. "Hisagi Shuhei. Pleasure is all mine." he said, just oozing so much charm and sex appeal that made Siren want to take him into the break room and have her way with him. At the same time, he seemed so sweet and awkward.

"Well, Ika my dear, you can either hang around for a while, or we can leave you to get settled in until Monday." Ukitake spoke up, quite amused by all these little exchanges.

"I would love to stay and get to know you all better, but I do have some things to do at my new home unfortunately." she said reluctantly, not a word of it being a lie, even though Hisagi's introduction did make her a little nervous. There was still so many boxes she had to unpack and furniture she had to rearrange. And she had planned to make a surprise visit to some other old friends.

"Alright, well come in whenever you are ready on Monday. Just don't work too hard over the weekend, you should have fun!" Ukitake encouraged kindly, and walked her out after everyone bid goodbye to her and Renji saying that he'd be over when he finished up this afternoon.

She thanked Ukitake very kindly for being so welcoming to her and told him that she was very excited about starting on Monday. He seemed glad to hear that and bid her goodbye, and then she went on her way, planning to visit that old friend before going home.

Little did she know that back at the office, Hisagi was still leaning up against that wall, lost in his own thoughts.

* * *

_This damn shop will never ever change..._ she thought as she parked her car next to the Urahara Shoten. The woman got out, bare foot since she took her shoes off as soon as she got in the car with a sigh of relief about getting them off and knowing that she didn't have to wear them to work, slid open the front door and walked in, casually, but cautiously as if waiting for something to pop out.

"Ika-chaaan? Is that you?" she heard the chipper voice from around the corner, that had a knowing tone to it. Damn perceptive bastard. He probably already knew that she was coming back and was expecting her to show up and say hi.

"It's been a while." she replied nonchalantly, totally used to him to not be phased by his ways any more, even though he always seemed like he knew more than he let on and he always had something up his sleeve...or hidden in his hat.

She waited in silence for his blond head with that damn green striped hat to appear from behind the corner. And only moments later, she saw his head poke out with a big smile on his face. Clearly, he was glad to see her.

He shifted his eyes to the left slightly, which was Siren's only warning to an arm swinging straight for her. She lifted her left arm up to block, which thankfully worked and yelped knowingly after seeing the golden-yellow eyes.

"Yoruichi! Do you have to do that every time I see you?" she drawled exaggeratedly, not being too surprised though.

"Got to make sure you haven't forgotten your training." the beautiful tan woman replied, and strolled further into the shop where Urahara was now standing only a few metres away from her.

"I don't think that's possible..." she muttered in quiet knowing, recalling those days when that woman would appear around random corners just to make sure she was on her guard. Even when she was walking home from school with Renji.

"Anyway, how have you guys been? I assume you both know that I've moved back." 'Ika-chaaan' asked politely, even though she knew that everything would be fine, Urahara would be doing his usual weird thing, and Yoruichi was probably still teaching hakuda to some of the local kids.

"Nothing's changed here Siren. So tell us, why did you decide to come back?" Yoruichi asked, her words rolling softly out of her mouth.

"Because she missed us! That's why Yoruichi-san!" Urahara interrupted and walked towards Siren to hug her, but just got a hard flat hand to the gut in response. You'd never know what happen to you if he touched you. Two weeks later, you'd find a tracking device on your jacket or something.

"I hated my other job, my other apartment was tiny, the neighbourhood was shit and I was just over it. So, I found a new place in those apartments next to the corner store and lined up a job at that Seireitei Graphic Design place. That's it really." she explained, her right hand turning from side to side as she spoke.

"Well, we're glad to see you back. And you'll have to come around and train with me again soon, the kids I'm stuck with now are terrible." Yoruichi said as she put her jacket on, ready to go and start one of the lessons since she also taught during lunch time at the local school.

The tall woman walked past, gave Urahara a quick peck on the cheek, which made him smile the tiniest bit making quite a beautiful moment, if only brief. She gave Siren a hug and went on her way after politely declining a lift from the smaller woman. Green eyes turned to Urahara, and she said goodbye to him before going out of the store, getting in her car and heading home.

Her inspiration from before when Yoruichi had kissed Urahara was buzzing and she dashed inside and up the stairs, opened her front door and rummaged through three boxes before finding the one she wanted. It was full of art book after art book and random pieces of paper stuffed into folder that were all drawn on. There was pencils, charcoals, inks, paint brushes, paints and almost every other art supply you could think of.

She found her newest art book, which wasn't yet full of random scribbles and doodles and pulled it out before grabbing a few pencils and setting them down on her coffee table. Before she got comfortable, she got out a beer, figuring that she didn't need to drive anywhere today, and the corner store was just next door if she needed food or anything like that.

And so it began. For the next few hours, she drew. She had this odd habit of drawing people that she had met, and that meant that she drew Ukitake, Rukia, Rangiku, Kira and finally Hisagi. Also, she drew that nice moment between Urahara and Yoruichi as well as Renji how she had first seen him yesterday, leaning up against his car, looking partially annoyed.

Before she even realised it, there was a knock at her front door. She snapped out of her artistic daze and got up to open the door to reveal Renji, still in his work clothes. He walked past her, holding a bag of what looked like bottles.

Siren kept moving her head around as she followed him to her kitchen, trying to see what was in the bags. He put them down on the counter and brought out a six-pack of beer then put it straight in the fridge, only taking one out and chucking it in the freezer.

After he had done that, they started talking as usual and ended up in the living room, where Siren had almost 10 drawings scattered over the coffee table. He chuckled as soon as he saw them, knowing that she was still good old Siren.

Renji had always loved her art work and never failed to be pleased with how good she was. He wasn't surprised to see a drawing of himself and actually chuckled when he realised how annoyed he must have looked while he was waiting for her, even though he was only being impatient.

At the moment, she was half way through drawing a new one of what looked like Hisagi so far. The other one she had done of him showed him leaning up against the wall, scratching the back of his head with a nervous look on his face, which Renji found hilarious to see from Siren's point of view. He would have to file that mental image away for later and pick on Hisagi about it on Monday.

So far, she had only done the outline of his face and shoulders and it seemed that he was giving the viewer a sidelong glance and with quite an 'interesting' look in his eyes. She snatched it out of his hands before he could see much more and pouted when he started laughing at her.

"Don't laugh at me, Aka Pine!" she screeched loudly, only making him laugh more because she was getting defensive.

"Do you like him Siren?" he asked breathlessly after a minute of hard laughter that was starting to hurt his stomach.

"I don't even know him, Renji. He's just very good to draw, especially with the tattoos and his micro-expressions. Just like you." she retorted, and even though she did find him attractive, what she said was true. His tattoos made the perspective and angle look so much more different than he would look without them.

He rolled his eyes, knowing that she was telling the truth but seeing straight through her. "You think he's hot, don't you?" he teased, just waiting for her to get up and start punching him or settle for throwing something at him.

She glared and narrowed her eyes a little, but remained calm, not wanting to give him what he wanted. "Yes, I do as a matter of fact. But artistically, he's very good to draw."

"Fair enough." he decided to let it go before she rung his neck and got up to get his beer out of the freezer. Replacing that one with another, he got out a beer for Siren as well, since she had just finished hers and brought them both back, along with a packet of chips.

For a while, she got him back by teasing him about how much he ate, and then they started talking about work.

"Basically, it's the best job in the world if you've got some artistic and designing talent. When Ukitake isn't there, and we have nothing to do, we just sit around and talk. Even when he is there we do that, but usually we try to make ourselves look busier, although I'm sure he sees straight through us. He's the best boss you could ask for. He doesn't like us getting stressed out and feeling pressured, so he creates a relaxing and comfortable work place. You'll love it." Renji explained, finally remembering at the end that Siren was actually going to be working with him.

"Awesome. I'm really excited to start. Everyone seems cool there too. Rukia and Rangiku seemed really nice, and Kira and Hisagi seemed pretty cool as well. I'm sure I'll love it. It's perfect for me. No stress, and I can do art and design whilst getting paid for it." she seemed very pleased, and Renji was glad to hear that.

It would be really awesome having his old friend back in town, as well as being within walking distance. But being able to work with her as well would just be even more awesome. They would be able to hang out like they did back in school.

On the weekends, they used to stay at each other's houses and they'd train together with Yoruichi all throughout the week. Rukia used to be his closest friend, but after she left to join the Kuchiki clan after being adopted by them, Siren had appeared only a few weeks later and they hadn't separated until Siren had left last year.

Siren was also feeling really happy that she moved back, and was starting to wonder why she ever bothered leaving, even with everything that happened. She could have gotten through it with Renji around, and even Urahara and Yoruichi would have helped her out with anything that she needed as well.

Those two had been almost like parents to her and she really should have called them more when she was away. Renji had been like a brother to her the moment she met him. Some bullies had been picking on her at school and he told them off and had looked after her ever since. He was the one that introduced her to Yoruichi and Urahara. She was glad to have him.

And so far, things really seemed to be looking up for her. Later on, her and Renji fell asleep on the couch, both glad that Siren had returned to Karakura Town...


	2. Chapter 2 - First Day

**Chapter 2 – First Day**

It was Monday morning and Renji was trying to wake up Siren without her killing him. She was not a morning person, and it was actually quite a hazardous and possibly dangerous task to get her up of a morning. He had unknowingly stayed over the whole weekend, and luckily enough, she had washed his work clothes for him so he had something to wear today.

He strolled over to her bedroom door, not caring about keeping quiet. The further away from her he was when she woke up, the better.

"Siren! Get up! It's time for work." he said loudly and hit his fist against her door after opening it and seeing only a small lock of black hair splayed across the pillow from above the blankets.

All he got in reply was a loud groan, and a pillow flung in his direction. Luckily, since his plan of staying at far away from her as possible when she woke, had worked, he was able to side step and catch the pillow mid-air before throwing it back at her and hearing another groan.

She would get up in about five minutes, so he decided to be nice and make them a quick breakfast before they left. It was only a simple concoction of bacon, an egg for himself and a few slices of toast with whatever choice of spreads.

Just as he had planned, five minutes after he woke her up, she emerged from her cave – bed - and sat down at the kitchen counter on one of the bar stools. She inhaled deeply through her nose, taking in the scent of a nice, hot breakfast and hoping that he didn't cook that egg for her. After another few minutes, she was a little more awake and Renji put her plate in front of her, then sat down next to her and began to eat.

They both finished their breakfast quickly and had a cup of coffee each before getting dressed and ready for the day ahead. While Siren was in her bedroom, choosing out clothes to wear, he saw the folder that the drawings she had done just the other day were in.

Making a swift and hasty decision, which would probably get him a punch to the gut later on, he grabbed it and quickly placed it amongst his work files that he had checked over the weekend. Hopefully, she wouldn't notice and he would be able to show her new co-workers what the new girl had done.

A few minutes later, they were both dressed and ready to go. They walked out the front door, and down the hall and continued to their cars. Ten minutes later – five minutes quicker now that Siren knew a shortcut, thanks to Renji -, they arrived out the front, parked their cars and headed inside. Renji said a quick good morning to Ise Nanao, the secretary and continued through while Ika introduced herself properly.

Ukitake came out of his office, just as she was going to go into it and he smiled politely and greeted her, which she returned.

"Good morning, Ika. How did your weekend go?" the older man asked politely, with kindness coming out of his ears, even though he looked quite worn out.

"It was good. Renji stayed over the whole time, but it was great to catch up with him. And what about your weekend?" she inquired just as politely, but feeling a bit concerned with Ukitake looking like he could probably fall asleep right then and there.

"Quite enjoyable, although I did not do much aside from have tea with an old friend of mine. I'm sorry, my dear, but I'm not feeling well so I think I'll head home even though the day has just started. Rukia will have everything you need." he breathed deeply and began to walk towards the front door, denying a lift home from Siren, saying that his driver was out the front, and sure enough a shiny black car was parked outside the building.

She waved goodbye to him after he waved to her before getting in the car, and turned to go and see Rukia, who apparently had everything she needed. Matsumoto quickly spotted her, since she was talking idly to Kira in the middle of the large work room they all shared.

"Morning! How are you today?" the bubbly woman asked, giving her a brief hug and half shoving Siren's head into her chest because she was so short.

"I'm fine, thank you. And yourself?" Siren answered, a little breathless from her partial suffocation-by-breasts.

"I'm quite well." she replied with a big, bright smile on her face that made Siren and even Kira smile a little.

"And how are you Kira?" Siren asked, turning to the other blond in the room.

"I'm not too bad, thank you." he nodded a little in thanks and excused himself to get back to work, or start it at least.

"Come with me, Ika! Rukia has your desk set up, and you've only got an easy job today. Well, we all have pretty much nothing to do today actually." Matsumoto led her over to the females side of the room and to the desk in between Rukia's and Matsumoto's.

At that moment, Rukia came walking out of the break room with a cup of coffee in hand, a cartoon rabbit printed on the mug. She smiled and said good morning to Siren, who greeted her back before asking her what she had to do today.

The woman who was actually a little smaller than Siren pointed to a small basket on her new desk that had a single file in it, before getting it out and talking her through the process, making it easier to understand by the second. Rukia had no doubt that Ika would pick the work up within a few days and be able to work on her own, and she was actually rather excited to see what she could come up with.

Siren thanked both of the women and sat down, ready to work. Matsumoto was right, it was quite easy. She was half-way through it within two hours and at this rate she would be finished by lunch and then be sitting around doing nothing for the rest of the day.

Instead, she got up and decided to get a cup of coffee and go see what Renji was up to. Speaking of boys, she hadn't seen one person today -...

_BUMP!_

Just as she went to walk around the corner to go into the break room, instead of going through the doorway, in her trance she had attempted to go through some _one_. Feeling incredibly awkward, and rather stupid at the moment for not looking where she was going, she whistled nervously and looked up to see the exact person she hadn't seen today. Hisagi Shuhei himself.

"Sorry about that, I was a bit spaced out." she stepped back swiftly after realising who it was, feeling even more stupid knowing that it wasn't Renji, who would have just laughed at her and then forgotten about it within five minutes.

"That's alright, I'm still half-asleep. I only just walked in the door." he chuckled a little, his awkwardness showing through as well. Then he noticed that she looked a little shorter than when he had seen her on Friday.

Not really realising what he was doing, he leant to one side, trying to see what shoes she was wearing, and coming to the conclusion that she wasn't wearing those really nice black, heels he had noticed her wearing when he met her, not that there wasn't much about her he didn't notice.

She saw him looking down at her feet, and it took her a moment to realise that he must have been wondering why she was shorter, since she was only wearing flats today. It was the only pair of tidy shoes she had aside her heels, since whenever she usually just wore joggers or flip flops around.

"Yes, I am shorter today. You aren't hallucinating." she said with a smart ass tone and nodded patronisingly.

"I noticed. You look a little more comfortable too." he bounced right back with an equally smart ass tone and patronising nod.

"I'm not a heels and dresses kind of girl." she replied with a tone lacking any kind of sarcasm. In fact, he picked up on a slight wavering in her voice, or maybe it was just him.

"That's not a bad thing." he ensured her with a small smile, his voice and eyes genuine.

Siren grinned and shook her head. "Of course not." she chuckled a little and walked into the break room, and Hisagi watched her for a few moments, sceptical of her response just then.

He wasn't entirely sure of how or why, but it just seemed a bit off. Instead of dwelling on it, he just decided to go and ask someone who would probably know her well enough to figure it out.

"Hey Abarai." the dark haired man said, getting the other man's attention and continuing once he got a sound of acknowledgement. "Is there something up with Ika today?"

At that, Renji turned his head away from the computer screen and towards Hisagi with his brows tightly pulled together and confusion in his eyes.

"She was fine this morning." he recalled quietly, not noticing anything wrong with her this morning. He was sure that if something was up, he would have figured it out.

"Wait...this morning?" Hisagi, now equally confused, had gauged that Renji wasn't referring to when they both got to work this morning since that wasn't that long ago.

"I stayed over her place on the weekend." the red-head explained simply, not thinking about the possible double entendre that his words had until Hisagi was half-way through asking his next question.

"But what about Ru-"

"Shh!" he hissed quietly, hoping that none of the women heard what Hisagi had nearly blurted out. "It's not like _that_. We became close friends after Rukia left to be adopted by the Kuchiki family. It's never been like that." he whispered, giving the other man a quick history lesson before turning back to his computer. "Was there anything in particular you noticed about Ika? It might just be her being half-asleep."

"Well, I noticed she was shorter and she said that she wasn't wearing heels today and that she wasn't a 'heels and dresses kind of girl'. But she seemed a bit...unconvinced when I said that it wasn't a bad thing." he recalled the look on the woman's face when she had 'agreed' to what he had said.

"Ah...that. I probably shouldn't tell you, but just don't mention anything about it to her, okay?" he seemed to think over his words before finally figuring out what to say.

"Basically, when she was younger and all through high school, until I became friends with her, she got picked on about being a tomboy. That never really bothered her, but the real problem is that since she's always been 'one of the boys', they never really take a romantic interest in her and she's been on her own since she was pretty young, so she just gets lonely at times. Nothing too complicated, but it's just a bit too deep-set for her to get over yet." Renji informed, not wanting to say too much, but just to give Hisagi a rough idea of what was going inside Siren's mind.

"You would think that guys would notice her because she's more comfortable around them. And it's not like she's not attractive or anything." he said the latter before he realised it and frowned at Renji's amused expression.

"I knew it." he stated simply, showing all of his knowing in those three words.

"Shut it, you. Can't I find an attractive woman attractive?" Hisagi retorted, after huffing and shaking his head.

"Well, if you do feel like trying to get with her, just make sure you are serious about it. You are a good mate, but she's like a sister to me and I won't have her getting hurt again." Renji pointed at him, but he was smiling at the same time, knowing that Hisagi never messed around with girls and if that he did want to start something with Siren, it would be serious.

Hisagi smirked at Renji's protectiveness and didn't bother prying even further about the 'getting hurt again' part. It was probably time for him to get some work done, so he turned to his own computer, switching it on and getting down to it as Renji got up, going to suss out if Siren was okay.

She was still in the break room, making herself a cup of coffee and collecting herself before going back to work. It was stupid to get upset over something like this, but she just couldn't help it. The first time someone had actually paid attention to her, it was only to use her, then throw her away like the dirty rag he had cleaned that damn motorbike she had built for him with.

As she turned around, ready to leave, Aka Pine was standing in the doorway with a knowing look on his face and concern in his eyes. She rolled her eyes and turned her head to the side with a deep breath.

"You okay? Hisagi was a bit worried about you, so he asked me if you were alright." he asked casually, trying to make sure that she wouldn't pick up on him telling Hisagi the truth about the reason behind her being upset.

"He was worried? What did you tell him?" she watched his reactions carefully, knowing that she'd be able to spot it if he was lying.

"I just said that you're probably still half-asleep since we hung out last night."

They stood there for at least 20 seconds, Siren watching his body language and his facial expressions for any signs of lying. She knew that he was telling the truth, but he was also leaving something out. Instead of questioning him here, she would wait until later when she could just kick his ass continually until he would tell the truth.

"I'm watching you...Aka Pine..." Siren said eerily and walked off, giving him a quick glare before she turned around the corner.

He exhaled deeply, glad to know she wasn't going to kill him _just_ yet. Siren walked back to her desk, sat down and continued with her work. By the end of the day, it was completely finished and she also had time to have a few more different colour schemes and small changes for the company to chose from, which should would be presenting to them tomorrow morning since Ukitake seemed to think she could handle that easily on her own.

Rukia and Matsumoto were very impressed with how it turned out, and so were Renji, Kira and Hisagi too, who had been called over by the blonde bombshell to have a look at. Now, they were all sitting around in the break room, conversing idly until the time came for them to clock off and head home.

Renji was holding a folder under his arm that looked suspiciously familiar to the green-eyed woman, and she tilted her body from side to side as he moved to get a better look. She couldn't see much from where she was sitting, so instead of continuing to look stupid, she just decided to question him on it and find out what the hell it was.

"Oi, what the hell is that and why do I recognise it?" she directed her question toward him with a small nod at the folder and instantly, a mischievous smirk came over his face, making Siren even more suspicious.

"I wanted to show everyone those drawings you did of them. You've gotten much better since last time I saw you, so I thought I'd show them what talent you've got." he averted his eyes away from her, but made sure to keep her in his peripheral vision in case she tried to grab the drawings and run.

After a moment, he looked back at her and his triumphant expression faded to concealed fear after he saw how blank her face was, meaning he was _totally screwed_. He doubted that he would be coming into work tomorrow, judging by the almost murderous look in her eyes, let alone be out of the hospital sometime in the next month.

"I will kill you for this. Know that." she stated simply and quietly, not particularly interested in making a scene on her first day of work but fully intending to pay Renji back for this. Oh, he would pay indeed.

"Fair enough." he responded with a gulp and a constricted tone.

"Hang on Renji. Did you say that Siren drew us?" Rukia asked, wondering if she heard correctly.

"Yep. She has a habit of drawing people that she meets. Check them out. It's some of the best work I've seen her do." he spoke proudly and laid the most recent drawings out on the table, pushing the appropriate ones in front of each person.

Siren moved her chair away from the table slightly, incredibly embarrassed, but also feeling quite excited to know what everyone thought. From the looks of it, they were really impressed with them. Jaws were dropped and eyes were wide. She also noticed that Hisagi looked a little embarrassed as well, clearly remembering why he looked so nervous in the drawing.

"Ika...these are...really great!" Kira complimented, amazed at how well they were depicted in a half-realism, half-cartoon style, which gave them depth but also character and a more interesting perspective. "How long have you been drawing for? The style is really cool." he continued, still shocked at the talent this woman had.

"I've been drawing like this since high school, but I reckon I've only just perfected the style." she answered quietly, feeling more and more embarrassed yet flattered by the second.

"Could we keep these? Please Ika?" Matsumoto begged, hoping that she could put it up on her wall at home, just loving the way her hair fell in the drawing and how her clothes really did fit so nicely and go together so well.

"Sure. They'll only go in a folder and probably not get touched for a few months. At least you'll appreciate them. I just do it to get it out of my system really." the woman continued, still speaking quietly.

"Thanks Ika!" Matsumoto said loudly, and everyone else said their thanks as well and Ika just brushed it off with a wave of her hand, glad to hear that they liked them.

"And I thought your drawings in high school were good." Renji commented with a smile on his face, making her eyes roll even though she always enjoyed his praise.

She just shrugged, trying to be as modest as possible. Most of the time, she didn't take compliments and kind words too well, often feeling too embarrassed to thank the person doing the complimenting.

At that moment, Hisagi managed to catch her eye, and he grinned happily at her in thanks for the drawing and nodded as if to say that he was incredibly impressed with her work. She smiled back and looked away, making him chuckle a little under his breath. He glanced at the clock, noticing that it was exactly 5.00PM, time for them to knock off, pack up and head home for the day.

"Hey guys. Time to go." he informed everyone, and they all got up from their seats, walked out of the break room and to their desks to pick up their things before saying goodnight to Ise, who locked up the place after everyone left, and headed out the front door.

Goodbyes were said across the car-park and Siren pointed and narrowed her eyes in warning at Renji before getting in her car and driving back home.

Soon enough, she was home, and made the trip up the stairs to the second level then began walking all the way down the hallway to the end, where her apartment was. The male that had been standing in his doorway the other morning was there again, doing the same thing and said a quick hello to her, which she politely returned before going into her apartment.

After she shut and locked the door behind her, she went straight over to her stereo system and put on her iPod, which sent music resonating through the apartment then grabbed a beer from the fridge. She got changed into a comfortable band shirt that was about 2 sizes too big, and her full-length, black and white pyjama pants.

These were the times she liked. The down time after work, where you could just sit around idly and enjoy a beer or two whilst watching a movie, or watching TV, even playing a video game. Speaking of video games, she turned on her Playstation and grabbed the controller and sat down on her couch and began to play one of her all time favourite games.

She felt a little bit stupid, being in her mid-twenties and playing a video game, but she didn't really care since she enjoyed it which was the important thing. And to her, down time was down time, no matter how you spent it...

* * *

It was Friday afternoon, and Siren was just sitting around in her apartment thinking about the week. She recalled back to Monday afternoon when everyone was in the break room and got some inspiration. She remembered how they all looked so impressed with her work and how they had all smiled happily at the sight of the drawings.

Quickly, she grabbed some paper and her pencil case, both of which were in plain sight since there was nothing more annoying than getting an idea but forgetting about it because she couldn't find anywhere to jot it down.

The pale-skinned woman walked back to the couch, sat down between it and the table on the floor and got to work. Roughly three hours later, she was putting on the finishing touches to the completed artwork.

It was a drawing of the group sitting at the table in the break room, with herself at one end of the table, Hisagi next to her, then Renji, Rukia, Matsumoto and finally Kira at the other end and all of them were acting just like themselves and how she had seen them since she had met them. She also drew in Ukitake and Ise as an afterthought standing up behind everyone in separate corners.

Ukitake looked as kind, fatherly, although slightly sickly as ever, with his mouth forming a genuine smile like he usually had and Ise was holding a book and adjusting her glasses. Kira was looking a little withdrawn, but had a small smile on his face. Matsumoto looked bubbly, and bright as the sun itself as always. Rukia looked serious and calm, even though her eyes couldn't hide the amusement and joy. Renji had his brow pulled together, even though he was looking at Rukia out the corner of his eye and had a tiny smirk on his face. Hisagi looked laid back and casual as always, with a lop-sided smirk and was leaning his head on his hand.

When she looked at how she had drawn herself, she actually smiled. There was a genuine smile on her face, and she seemed rather happy. Usually, when she drew a self-portrait, she never looked like that. It was always a blank look, or something a little more apathetic or melancholy. And even then, she barely ever drew self-portraits.

All in all, they seemed comfortable and happy together, and she knew that she would end up becoming good friends with these guys and girls.

Rukia was totally awesome for just being that neutral person, who was mature, wise and calm as well as being funny in her own way. Matsumoto's lively and upbeat nature never failed to put a smile on your face, and her laugh was always contagious.

Kira may be a little gloomy at times, but he was incredibly sweet and good for someone just to relax with. Hisagi was also pretty calm, but he was very laid back and cool in his own way. And Renji...well, he was just Renji. Quick to be angered, but good to make fun of, and serious when he needed to be.

Ukitake was the best boss you could ever ask for or dream of. He was so kind, polite and always willing to help you out if you needed it. The older man didn't like to put pressure on his employees, instead he created a relaxing, pleasant environment so that everyone would _enjoy_ going to work, so that no one would wake up in the morning, dreading the day ahead.

Siren was usually rather quiet unless she knew the people she was around fairly well, but she found herself coming out of her shell more and more each day and connecting with everyone on a different level and just really enjoying being around them. They never failed to surprise her, and keep her amused. Going to work was fun, and almost better than just sitting around at home with friends.

She never minded having things to do throughout the day, and Ukitake made sure that they never had a work-load that would force them to work faster than they felt comfortable doing, so no one would feel pressured and try to rush through the work they were given. Therefore, she rather enjoyed the idle, yet time-consuming work that she had to do.

It kept her busy, and so far it hadn't stressed her out, worried her too much or made her feel pressured at all. In other words, she was absolutely ecstatic about the job, and couldn't be happier about having such wonderful co-workers and a great boss. Her life in it's entirety paled in comparison to how good this job was, especially the last year or two and she imagined that she would definitely be sticking with job permanently.

After a few minutes, the final touch ups were done, and the drawing was complete. It was a rather large one, being on an A3 sheet, and maybe, if everyone liked it of course, she could frame it and put it up on a wall in the office. She was certain that Ukitake would like that, since he was very impressed with the drawing she had done of him and he had asked her if he could keep it. Ise had also had a portrait done, and had also been very pleased and asked if she could keep it.

Smiling with the results, she jumped at the sound of a knock at her door. Renji's knock. She got up, leaving the drawing on the table and went to the door, not really caring that she was basically in her pyjamas.

When she opened the door, she saw something she did not expect. The people she had just been thinking about were standing at her front door, dressed up as if they were ready to go out. Green eyes were wide, and they were all smiling happily at her.

She snapped out of it when they all greeted her, and she opened the door further and let them all in, not caring that there was still several boxes holding various assorted items in them which she hadn't bothered to unpack and fix up yet.

Still a bit confused, she said to make themselves comfortable and they all found a seat either on the big lounge, the lounge chair or the bar stools at the kitchen counter.

"So...may I ask why you all looked so dressed up?" she asked going around the room and looking at everyone's outfits as she leant informally against the counter.

"We're going out, and you're coming with us!" Rangiku answered first, jumping in her seat a little in excitement and making her voluptuous breasts bounce slightly.

"Uh, okay. Since when? You could have called so I would have been ready to go when you all got here instead of looking like a frigging bum." she stated with a chuckle and stopped leaning on the counter. " I guess I'll get ready then. Feel free to grab a drink or something. I won't be too long." the small woman said and strolled into her bed room, shutting the door behind her and opening the door to her closet to look for something to wear.

For a couple of minutes, she rummaged through her draws and whatever clothes were hung up and eventually found a nice pair of full-length, fitted black jeans and a cobalt blue tank top with a motorcycle brand name printed on the front.

It was probably the most tidy, but not too formal, clean shirt she had, so it would have to do. She pulled the jeans on, and the tank top then adjusted them both to the most comfortable spot. When she was happy with that, she also got out a thin, black button up cardigan for later when it would be a bit colder and left it on her bed.

After that, she walked into her bathroom and got out her small make-up bag which barely had anything it in anyway. A few minutes later, she had applied a light layer of foundation and a bit of powder that had probably been used only twice before as well as a bit of eye liner that was darker than what she had on at work, a bit of black eye shadow, and mascara to finish it off.

She walked out of the bath room, grabbed the cardigan, opened her door, smiled at everyone and spoke.

"Shall we?"

 


	3. Chapter 3 - A Night On The Town

**Chapter 3 - A Night On The Town**

"Shall we?"

Everyone looked towards the bedroom door, and at the swift, but dramatic transformation. Pyjamas to fitted, black jeans, and a blue tank top with a black cardigan hanging over her arm and a smile on her face.

Siren walked over to the front door of the apartment, and put on her shoes as everyone got out of their seats, ready to leave and have a good night. She grabbed her wallet, mobile phone and her keys off the small table next to the door and waited for the group to walk out, followed suit then shut and locked it behind her.

"You look so pretty, Ika! Those jeans are gorgeous!" Rangiku said as she fell into step with the smaller woman.

"Thanks. You look stunning, as always. Rukia, you look really great too." Siren replied and complimented Rukia, who was walking with her on her left.

"Thank you, Ika. I think the boys scrubbed up nicely as well." she spoke loud enough for said boys to hear and with a sly tone.

"You mean to say we don't look this good every day?" Hisagi teased, turning his head just enough for the three woman walking behind him to see the side of his profile, showing his amused smirk.

"Hisagi, you come into work sometimes wearing slippers because you forget to put on your shoes." Rangiku retorted smugly, using her wonderful fashion-based observation powers to put the black-haired man in his place.

"Point taken." he replied and turned his head back to the front, chuckling under his breath even though he'd been beat.

"So where are we all going? Last time I was in town, I don't recall there being a club or bar that would merit this kind of dress code." Siren asked, trying to brainstorm if there was any place in town they could be going to.

"It's called Rukongai, and it's new actually, so it wouldn't have been here when you were here last. They only finished building it about a month ago, and we've made it our regular place to go every second Friday night." Renji answered, his arms crossed behind his head as they walked down the stairs of Ika's apartment building.

"Fair enough. How are we getting there? We can't all fit in one car." she inquired, wondering whether two people would be driving to this place.

"Well, the reason that we go there every second Friday, is because Kira's friend is the courtesy bus driver who works every second Friday, and he always comes and picks us up in the bus that can take all of us." Renji informed

Sure enough, when they walked out the front, there was a small 12-seater bus waiting at the kerb for them. Everyone jumped in, sat down, and off they went.

Siren couldn't believe how excited she was about going out for the night. She hadn't been out aside from going to the small bar down the road for a beer when she'd ran out of bottles and a walk to the convenience store to get more wasn't going to cut it for being out of the house at least once a day besides going to work.

The girls were talking about what cocktails they could buy and the boys were busy talking about...whatever boys talk about on their way out. Rukia informed Siren that usually they all just shouted each other drinks and it all worked out eventually. She told Siren that there was a dance floor, and a DJ on Friday nights, as well as a live band after 11PM.

When they got there, the line to get in was already growing in length, and they took their place after thanking Kira's friend. At the front of the line, they all showed their ID cards to the security guard, who approved them entry and gave them a stamp on the back of their hand.

The music was loud, but not so loud that you couldn't hear someone speaking right in your ear. It seemed that it was divided into several different sections, one which had the dance floor, another where there was seats and the music was much quieter, and another part with poker machines, pool and air hockey tables as well as some old school arcade games.

Their group headed towards the room with the seats, and they all sat down and ordered six beers. For the next half hour, and another drink each, they talked, laughed, joked, poked fun of and just generally enjoyed themselves.

All of a sudden, the boys kind of started having their own conversation through their eyes, while the girls sat across them and idly watched in confusion. Clearly, they were planning something, and all three girls looked between each other and shrugged in unison after giving up trying to figure out what the other three members of their group were doing.

Renji got up out of his seat, and walked over to stand next to Rukia. He leant forward slightly and held out his hand in a silent question if she would dance with him. She smiled at him being so gentlemanly, and took his much larger hand and stood up, but quickly turned her head and tilted it forward to the rest of them, telling them all to get up and dance too.

Kira and Hisagi quickly got up, and Kira asked Rangiku to dance while Hisagi shyly asked Siren, who just as shyly, if not more so, accepted. All six of them, paired up, walked to the other room and over to the dance floor.

The music was perfect to dance to, and the DJ played lots of the new music that was on the radio, as well as some other older songs from past decades. Siren looked around at her new friends and grinned happily. Kira looked a little nervous, but he was smiling as Rangiku took his hands and spun around in circles with him. Renji currently had a hold of one of Rukia's hand and she was spinning around in front of him before talking hold of her other hand and doing a sort of side to side sway in time with the beat. Hisagi and her were doing silly ballroom dances that looked hilarious and made the other four crack up laughing.

A few songs later, they all sat down to have a drink, and enjoyed the icy cold beer after dancing for a while. They were all having such a great time, and Rukia, Rangiku, Kira, Hisagi and of course Renji were so glad that Siren had come along.

She had come out of her shell quite a lot since they had first met her. Now, she had no hesitation about laughing at Kira when he was walking around the office for ten minutes looking for a form that he had in his hand the whole time, or when Hisagi forgot to put on his shoes in the morning and shows up wearing slippers, or punching Renji when he'd pick on her, or talking about whatever with the girls on their lunch break.

Clearly, the black-haired girl fit right in with their assorted group and she was certainly glad that everyone just clicked with each other and got along like they'd been best friends since they came out of their mothers.

And yet, some of the group seemed to get along a bit better than others. She had noticed that Renji had barely taken his eyes off Rukia all night. Renji had previously told her that there was a girl he really cared about before they met in high school, but he told her that she'd moved away after being adopted and she hadn't bothered asking him about her after that, in case it upset him.

Rukia had told her a little bit about herself, but not really enough to be sure. She said that she had lived in Karakura Town many years ago, but had to move away with her family. The chances that she was the girl Renji cared about so much was high, but she might have to ask to find out.

Also, Kira seemed to have a little crush on the other blonde-haired, blue-eyed member of their group, Rangiku. They were almost polar opposites in their personalities. Kira being quiet, sometimes a little gloomy, and Rangiku being bright, bubbly and always in a good mood.

Whenever she was around Kira, he always seemed to have a small smile on his face, that even his gloomiest days couldn't stop from happening. Even though she hid it very well, Rangiku seemed to have a soft spot for Kira as well, and she always was extra cheery to him in the mornings.

She would say that Hisagi and her were the odd ones out, but she would be kind of lying. It was pretty clear, especially after tonight that he was pretty attracted to her, and she couldn't lie to herself and say that she wasn't attracted to him, even in the slightest bit.

He always went out of his way to say good morning to her when he came in, since she was always there before him, even walking around to her desk to say hi some days if she wasn't in the break room making coffee or talking to Renji.

Nevertheless, he hadn't made a move on her yet, even though they did have quite a flirtatious moment the other day in the morning.

" _Morning sunshine." said a voice from behind her._

_She finished pouring her cup of coffee, and smiled to herself, knowing exactly who it was._

" _Morning Hisagi. May I ask why it's always sunshine to me?" she asked as she grabbed another mug and poured more coffee into it, then slid it over to him just as he stood next to her facing the counter._

" _Because you seem even more gloomy than Kira in the morning. Just some good old sarcasm for you." he answered with an amused laugh._

" _It's the morning. Enough said! I had to get out of my warm bed, put clothes and make-up on, drive here in the cold and then work for the rest of the day. Granted, it could but much, much worse, but I just hate getting out of bed." she retorted with a chuckle and a shake of her head._

" _Why do you think I'm late some mornings? I wake up when my alarm goes off, get annoyed and turn it off, then fall back to sleep, wake up half an hour later then think 'Shit, I've done it again!'"._

" _Maybe you should just not turn your alarm off. Or set another one for like fifteen minutes after your first one." she offered, knowing that Ukitake couldn't be entirely happy with him showing up late some of the time._

" _Tried that. I turn my alarm off in my sleep some mornings. Well, I must because it certainly goes off, I just don't wake up." he shrugged, and sipped on his fresh coffee._

" _Aw, poor baby. Whatever will we do with you." she said in a pitiful and teasing voice, while pouting sardonically._

_She looked back and poured another cup of coffee that she was supposed to give to Renji like five minutes ago, and when she looked back at Hisagi, wondering why he hadn't said anything yet, the look in his eyes was a little more suggestive than she ever could have guessed._

" _What are you conspiring?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and narrowed eyes, even though she was smirking._

" _You should wake me up of a morning. That would be much nicer than the blaring of my alarm." he said with a melodramatic tone, even though the glint in his eye never faded as if he knew_ exactly _what the double entendre for his words was, but he said it anyway._

" _Just do what I said. That's how I get up every morning. Anyway, I've got to take this to Renji. And you're welcome." she added, referring to the cup of coffee she had poured him when he first walked in the room._

_Her inner self had her jaw dropped and wide eyes at the suggestive words he spoke, even though if he didn't have that look in his eye, it wouldn't have been anywhere near such a flirtatious statement. She collected herself, and nodded once at him before walking out of the break room, her own and Renji's cup of coffee in hand._

" _Thank you, sunshine!" she heard him say as she strolled off._

"Ika...Ika?"

"Sorry, I was...a bit spaced out." she answered Rukia, who had been waving her hand in front of the Siren's face and calling her name for almost 30 seconds now.

"No shit. Do you want to come to the little girls room with us?" Rangiku asked her and pointed her thumb behind her were the female's bathroom was with a look in her eyes that said she had to come.

"Yeah, sure." she said and got out of her seat, following the other two girls.

As soon as they were out of sight, it began...

"Oh my gosh, Rukia!" Rangiku exclaimed loudly as they walked through the bathroom door. "Renji was so adorable when he asked you to dance!"

"He was." Rukia agreed much quieter with a small smile on her face.

"I'm pretty certain he likes you, Rukia. He's barely taken his eyes off you all night." Siren entered the conversation, even though she wasn't exactly the biggest fan of female bathroom talk on a night out. Usually, she just went to the bathroom by herself, instead of in a group, not that she went out that often, if barely ever, or knew many women.

"You like him, don't you?" Rangiku asked, her bright blue orbs sparkling with curiosity and knowing.

"Well, we've known each other since we were kids! And I don't know if I'd want to take the next step with him because of our strong friendship. I wouldn't want to risk ruining it, you know?" the smallest woman said, while pacing a few steps up and down the length of the bathroom.

"Rukia, I don't think you could ruin your friendship. If it didn't work out, which I doubt, I'm sure that you are both mature enough to be okay with it and end it on good terms and stay friends." Siren offered sagely and smiled as she watched Rukia pacing, knowing how happy Renji would be if they got together, now that she knew for sure that Rukia was the girl he talked about.

"You think?" Rukia stopped pacing and asked, looking at both her friends.

Both women nodded in response to her question, smiling because they were happy for Rukia and Renji. Rangiku, being at Seireitei much longer than Siren, had noticed something was a bit different between them, but didn't think much of it since it could have bordered on almost familial love and concern since they'd known each other for so long, but now she knew otherwise, thanks to Siren's input.

"Okay. I'll see what happens, and maybe I'll talk to him about hanging outside of work sometime and just seeing where things go." Rukia relented, and decided that it couldn't hurt to see where things went, even though she was still worried about damaging their friendship.

"And Kira was checking you out a bit, Rangiku." Siren commented and chuckled a little when Rangiku suddenly went a little shy, and chewed her pointer fingernail nervously.

"You reckon?" she asked quietly, with a tiny smirk on her full lips.

"She's had a little crush on him for ages." Rukia teased and also chuckled under her breath, when Rangiku pouted at her, even though she was still smirking.

"I just think he's really sweet, and I like when he's all quiet and whenever he smiles when I say good morning to him. I don't know."

"Well then, why don't we all just hang out with one of the guys then?" Rukia said, and smirked when Siren's head snapped in her direction with a confused look on her face. "Please, don't look at me like that. You know just as well as I do that Hisagi has been undressing you with his eyes since the first moment he saw you."

"So? He might think I'm attractive, but I'm sure he doesn't have feelings for me." Siren brushed off Rukia's comment, even though she knew it was true and was a bit overwhelmed with how Rukia had worded it.

"Does it matter? He might after he gets to know you more." Rangiku said, and Siren knew exactly what she would say next.

"If you don't hang out with Hisagi, we won't hang out with Renji and Kira. Ah! Peer pressure!" she pointed at the other woman, who sighed, rolled her eyes and made some embarrassed sound of agreement.

"Awesome! Let's just casually organise something in the car on the way home, so make sure you play along Siren. You can't get out of it now!" Rangiku said happily, and all three of them walked out of the bathroom and over to the table where the boys were still seated.

Two hours later, after enjoying the live band and singing along to the songs they knew, they decided to call it a night and head home. The car conversation was certainly interesting for the women, who had already planned nearly everything out just by looking at each other.

"So, what are you guys doing tomorrow?" Rangiku asked casually, pulling it off perfectly, and even flipped her hair a little.

"Well, I was thinking of going and seeing a movie. You guys are welcome to come." Renji said and looked at the group.

"What movie is it?" Rukia spoke up innocently, even though Siren could see the hope in her eyes.

"Um, it called 'Grown Ups'." he answered and grinned knowingly Rukia spoke next.

"Oh, I saw the trailer for that on TV last night. It looks funny."

Surprisingly enough, she was actually telling the truth, and laughed as she recited a part from the trailer that looked hilarious. Siren was pretty impressed with how good she was at thinking on her feet.

"Anyone else?" Renji said, even though Siren could tell he was happy enough just to have Rukia coming with him.

"Well, I can't. I've got something to pick up in the next town, and now that Renji is hanging out with Rukia, I'm going to need someone else to give me a hand." Siren asked without actually asking, and looked between Kira and Hisagi, even though she'd probably keel over if Kira offered to help.

"I'm free, if you need a hand." Rangiku offered, and Siren turned to her, even though she was wondering why she had said that. It only took her a minute to remember.

"Actually, it's that bike I was telling you about. I need to put it in the back of my ute and I can't really pick up a 150 kilogram motorbike on my own. Thank you anyway." Siren informed casually, now remembering that she had already told Rangiku about it, and it was the perfect opportunity to let Kira know that she was free.

"Motorbike, huh? I'll give you a hand." said the voice she was hoping to hear, partially because she did actually need a hand with it, and also because the girls would probably give her heaps if she purposely missed a perfect chance to get to know Hisagi better and vice versa.

"Thanks. I was going to get one of the guys at the shop to help, but I'd prefer someone I know." Siren grinned in appreciation and she was just hoping that Kira would be free so that he could see Rangiku.

"Rangiku. If you're free, I'll hang out with you, if you don't feel like having a day to yourself." the young man said quietly, just over the sound of the small bus' engine.

"Sure, Kira. Sounds great!" Rangiku exclaimed loudly, bubbly as per usual.

"Well, seems like we'll all be having a wonderful Saturday then." Hisagi said as the bus pulled up in front of his apartment building. "What time should I drop by tomorrow?" he asked, looking at Siren.

"Whenever you wake up. There's no rush, so by all means, sleep in." she replied, hoping that he wouldn't show up at 8AM or something.

"Alright, see you tomorrow. See you guys!" he jumped off the bus and waved as they went past, then entered his buildings front door.

Twenty minutes later, it was just Siren and Renji on the bus and he was looking at her knowingly.

"You girls totally sorted that 'we all hang out together' thing in the bathroom, didn't you?" he asked, watching her with narrowed eyes, even though he knew the answer.

She simply shrugged, and acted casual, even though the amusement in her eyes was enough to give it away. "I presume you won't tell anyone that you have knowledge of this."

"I won't. We both know that I got what I wanted too, so there's no need. I'm just surprised that you had the same idea that we did."

"Then we all got we wanted, didn't we." Siren admitted, sounding more confident than she actually was.

"Are you sure about this? Hisagi is a good guy, and he doesn't mess around with women, but still." Renji asked, concern lacing his voice. He knew she could handle herself, and that she was incredibly strong, but he was still worried.

"It'll be fine. Nothing is certain, as of yet. You just worry about your date with Rukia." she assured him, and got up as the bus stopped out the front of her building. "Text me about how it goes."

"I will. Same to you!" he yelled after her as she thanked Kira's friend and stepped off the bus.

By the time she got up to her apartment, and unlocked the door, she started to realise how tired she was. She wasn't used to going out any more, and she didn't really dance that much either. All that aside, she had a great night, and she was looking forward to going again in two weeks time.

Speaking of looking forward to things, she was excited about tomorrow, not just because she was picking up her new motorcycle, but also because she got to hang out with Hisagi. She hadn't expected him to look _that_ good tonight.

He had been wearing a tidy pair of blue jeans, a plain white shirt underneath a black jacket. Simple, but it just brought out his 'rough at the edges' look, which she found incredibly attractive. His hair had been spiky and all over the place as usual, but she liked that it looked untameable.

As she showered, got changed and jumped into bed, she thought about what they could do after they picked up her bike tomorrow. Before she could even calm her mind enough to decide on anything, she fell asleep...

* * *

_Knock, knock, knock..._

" _Ika? Are you up?"_

She heard vaguely, muffled from behind the door. Dragging herself to the door, she unlocked it and opened it, letting Hisagi in and made some odd noise of greeting.

"Morning sunshine. I called you when I was leaving, but you didn't answer." he said, and walked over to sit down on the bar stools at her kitchen counter.

"I'll just get ready. Feel free to get a drink or some breakfast if you haven't had anything yet." she started to stroll back into the bedroom, but stopped when he spoke again.

"Well, actually, we're going out for breakfast. I'm sure the motorcycle store isn't open yet." he told her, with a smirk on his face, knowing that she was probably going to be shocked when she realised what the time was.

"Why? What's the time anyway?...8AM? What the fuck?" she stomped back out and stared at him for a moment. "I thought I said that you could sleep in."

"I know. But the place I wanted to take you to stops serving breakfast at 10.30 and I didn't want to rush you." he said with a happy smile, knowing that she was going to enjoy it, even if he had come a little earlier than she expected.

She tried to retort, but just couldn't since he was actually going to take her out for breakfast, and she could already smell bacon and toast with a nice glass of juice that she didn't have to make herself. Instead, she turned and continued towards her bedroom, shut the door behind her and quickly grabbed a few different clothes to wear.

Eventually, she decided on the black and green one with the same brand of motorcycle that she would be getting today, and pulled on her pair of black pants that she usually wore while working on a bike that were surprisingly tidy, and weren't ripped and covered in grease and oil... not yet anyway.

When she walked out, she was awake enough to get excited and also nervous again, but didn't let it show as she grabbed her wallet, keys and phone off the counter and asked Hisagi if he was ready to go. He answered by getting up and they both walked out the front door a moment later.

They jumped in her ute, and he directed her to the small cafe on a corner and they pulled up just out the front. When they walked in, the guy clearly recognised Hisagi, and she guessed that he came every other Saturday.

The man led them to a small booth in the back corner, and they both ordered their drinks, which he came back with a minute or two later. Then they ordered their food, and conversed idly while they waited for it. About fifteen minutes later, the man walked out holding two plates, and Siren nearly forgot to breath out after smelling the beautiful food.

She absolutely loved the breakfast and when they were finished, Hisagi paid for them both, much to her chagrin (and flattery) and then they headed off to get her motorcycle in the next town. It didn't take them too long to get there, and Siren didn't even have to walk in the store as one of the salesmen came out and pointed out her new bike.

It was a green and black 2004 Kawasaki Ninja ZXR 250C. She grinned happily and thanked the salesman, and Hisagi helped her load it onto the back of the ute, which didn't take long, since she knew what she was doing.

They left and went back to her place after that, and she parked in the underground garage and they unloaded the bike into the parking space next to the ute. Hisagi didn't really know much about motorcycles, but he certainly wouldn't mind one of his own, and he really liked the one that now belonged to Siren.

"Want to go for a spin?" she asked, smirking devilishly at him.

"I don't trust that look on your face, but I can't say no." he answered with a chuckle, and she opened the back passenger door to her ute – which was a dual cab – and got out the two helmets she kept in there and gave one to Hisagi.

He put on the helmet, and got her to help him in doing it up, and fixed her own up before getting on the bike, and gesturing for him to jump on behind her. With a deep breath, he did so, and much to his happiness, he wrapped his arms around her waist, and was surprised at the loud sound of the high-powered engine of such a small piece of machinery.

They moved back out of the parking space, and Siren didn't spare a second thought to see what the bike could do, even though she was very careful with Hisagi being on the back. They raced around back streets and main roads, enjoyed the feeling of the wind in their hair.

Quite obviously, Siren was a good rider, and he quickly trusted her to have a bit of fun, but keep them both safe whilst riding on the bike. They rode around for about half an hour then went back to the underground car park and went in the same parking space as before.

After, they went back up to Siren's apartment and watched a movie before Siren decided to cook a nice lunch for them both. Within an hour, she had cooked up perfectly grilled fish and barbecue chicken skewers, miso soup with pork, potato, and mostly anything else that went with it, and steamed white rice.

It was delicious, and Hisagi was incredibly impressed with her cooking skills, even though she was only good at cooking it because it was one of her favourites, mostly because it was so easy, but it still tasted great and filled her up. They both had seconds, and she was surprised that she didn't even have any leftovers.

For the rest of the day, they sat around watching various movies, and playing various video games, and it just so happened that one of Siren's favourites was also Hisagi's favourites, and they enjoyed exchanging cheats and special things that they had learned whilst playing it.

At around 5PM, Hisagi left and he gave her a brief, but warm hug at her door before going to his car, and driving back home. All in all, the day couldn't have went better, and she made sure to text Renji about how it went and just before she went to bed later on that night, she got a text saying that his date had gone great as well.

Hisagi was right. It _was_ a wonderful Saturday...

 


	4. Chapter 4 - Descending

**Chapter 4 - Descending**

Sunday morning, Siren thoroughly enjoyed being able to wake up at 10.30AM and just bum around for the rest of the morning. She walked around the apartment, not even bothering to put on a pair of pyjama pants since she wasn't cold, and just wore the large T-shirt she used as a pyjama shirt.

There wasn't much on TV, and she didn't feel bothered enough to play a game, so instead she put on a movie, and only half paid attention whilst doing a bit of drawing. She had gotten that much inspiration yesterday that it wasn't funny and she had decided to stay in today and get it all out. As she thought back to the previous day, she realised that it really had helped her get to know Hisagi better and vice versa.

They found out like basic things, birthdays, likes and dislikes, birth place, family members and other things like that, but also about each other's personalities. She knew that Hisagi was a really laid back guy, but he was serious about his job and would put in every ounce of effort he could to excel in it, even though he was terrible at getting there on time.

Also, he had a similar sense of humour to her. They found some of the most minor and stupid things funny, and enjoyed more intelligent and witty humour and they also enjoyed the same kinds of foods. Before she knew it, she had half finished a drawing of him sitting across the table from her, looking very interested in what she was saying, when they went out to get breakfast.

She'd definitely have to make that a routine on a Saturday or Sunday morning. After a while, she'd finished the drawing and smiled in satisfaction with it. The background was a bit hazy, because she had a bit of trouble remembering what it was – mainly because Hisagi was the more intriguing scenery – and it had also made the drawing come out more how she'd pictured it in her head, since the focus was entirely on him.

A sudden knock at the door startled her slightly and she figured it was just Renji coming over to ask about yesterday and to talk about his date with Rukia. The only thing was, that it wasn't Renji's knock. It was a bit softer and a couple of hits shorter than Renji's. Quickly, she grabbed a pair of boxers and put them on so she was decent.

While she walked to the door, she realised that she vaguely recognised the knock, but she couldn't put her finger on who did it. As she opened the door, she got her answer.

_Hisagi Shuhei._

"'The shit are you doing here?" she asked with a slightly surprised expression, thinking that he would be the last person she'd expect over today.

He shrugged nonchalantly before speaking. "Hello to you too. And no particular reason... Bored..." he responded casually, hoping that it wasn't a bad time. Also, he was totally lying. He just couldn't wait until Monday to see her again and had debated all morning whether it would be appropriate or annoying of him to come over randomly.

"Sorry, I just didn't expect any visitors today. I'm bored too. Come on in." she stepped aside and let him walk past, shutting the door behind him. "Uh, don't mind the mess, I've been drawing all morning." she said, referring to the various pieces of paper with scribbles and random doodles on them here and there, and the large range of different pencils, erasers and sharpeners laying around on the coffee table in front of the lounge.

Realising that the drawing of said man that had just walked in her door was quite obviously visible on the table, and feeling rather embarrassed, she all but ran over to the table, just as Hisagi was sitting down on the lounge and tried to grab it quickly, but when she heard him say 'What's this?' she knew she was too late and he stopped her with an arm out, making sure she was just far enough away so that the drawing was out of arm's reach for her, and he picked it up and turned his body away, keeping his arm out and stopping her from grabbing it from his hands.

She knew that it would only be too easy to just disable his arm, and get the drawing back, but she kind of wanted to see if he liked it or not so she didn't fight back too much until he turned to look at her with a smirk on his face.

With a small but fake growl, she twisted away from his arm, blocked him from stopping her again, leapt up onto the lounge and dropped a knee, gently enough to not hurt or wind him, into his stomach, wrapped her leg around his arm to stop it's movement, and pin him down before quickly grabbing the drawing from his grasp as he tried to hold it above his head away from her.

When she successfully got it back from him, she realised that he could have easily fought back but he seemed pretty content for her to pin him down. The barely restrained laughter and devilish glint in his eye told her that he was kind of hoping for that.

She narrowed her eyes at him, silently telling him that she knew was he was doing, and poked her tongue out at him triumphantly before releasing him and getting up off him and the lounge. He chuckled under his breath for a few more moments before sitting back up and watching her as she collected up the various pieces of paper and placed them inside her folder and put all her drawing tools back into her pencil case all the while shaking her head and trying not to smirk.

"You don't have to be embarrassed. It's _really_ good." he commented genuinely, still watching her as she picked up the folder and pencil case and put them over onto her kitchen counter, where she usually kept them.

As soon as she looked at him, with a concealed flattered expression that she was trying to hide by rolling her eyes, he grinned at her so adorably that she had to turn away. It was such a cute boyish grin that she couldn't help chuckling a little while she pretended to 'organise' things on the kitchen counter to distract herself.

Just after she was finished distracting herself, she heard the low growling of Hisagi's stomach from the other side of the room. She turned around with a knowing look on her face, and he had averted his eyes from her in slight embarrassment.

"Hungry?" she asked sardonically with a black, shaped eyebrow raised in amusement.

Hisagi looked at her out of the corner of his eye, feeling a bit silly. "Can you tell?"

"Not at all!" Siren exclaimed, sounding serious but her body language and facial expression showed nothing but complete sarcasm making Hisagi laugh softly.

The small woman opened the fridge door, inspected the contents, or lack thereof and shut the door after she noticed how little food she had in there. After, she opened the freezer, only to again be disappointed and then the pantry, also finding nothing. She briefly wondered where the food she had cooked up yesterday for them both came from.

"Well, seems like we have a little shopping trip to do then."

* * *

Hisagi pulled a small trolley out of the line just outside the store, and they both walked in, Hisagi pushing the grocery-holding contraption and Siren strolling next to him. They had gone to the bigger department store in town, since the corner store didn't really have enough to completely restock a kitchen, and it could be a little bit too expensive for certain items as well.

While they walked around, Siren laughed at Hisagi acting like a child with the trolley. He'd lift his feet up after getting some momentum so he would just glide along past her as she went in different isles, pulling a different silly face each time he went past making her clutch her stomach because she was laughing so much.

After doing that a few times, he convinced her to sit on the front and they glided all the way down one isle to the back of the store to get milk, Siren holding up a bottle of soda in a heroic pose and saying 'You shall not pass!' loudly enough to make other people in the store look. Some recognised what she was saying and laughed, but most just looked at her like she was an idiot.

They got the milk and put it into the trolley and continued their silly antics all the way to the check out, where they stopped messing around and tried not to laugh as they waited for the staff member to finish scanning their items so they could pay for them.

When they were finished paying for their items, they collected up all the bags and took them back to the car, thoroughly enjoying how stupid they acted in the store and laughing about the people that stared at them. All in all, they were having a pretty good day so far.

Soon enough, they arrived back at Siren's apartment and brought all the groceries upstairs and unpacked them once they'd gotten inside whilst trying to decide what to cook for lunch. Hisagi suddenly got an idea, and he knew it was perfect.

"Let me handle it, okay? I've got something in mind." he said and put his hands on Siren's shoulder when she tried to protest and walked her over to the lounge, turned her around and gently pushed her down to a seated position.

She gave up and agreed to stay put while he cooked lunch for them both, and he turned on her game console and gave her the controller and told her to amuse herself for the time being and patted her on the head patronisingly. Her response was to again poke her tongue out at him and she noticed he went a bit serious for a moment while he spoke.

"I wouldn't do that again if I were you." the dark-haired man warned her off-handedly and turned to go back to the kitchen, even though his expression was telling her that he secretly wanted her to do it again.

"Why not?" Siren challenged him with narrowed eyes and a smirk on her face.

He rotated on one foot back around to face her and shrugged. "Do it again and you'll find out."

As much as she dared doing it again, she decided not to, just in case he didn't end up cooking her lunch. Renji had previously mentioned to her that he was a pretty good cook, and occasionally brought in packaged containers of dishes he had cooked into work for everyone to eat during their breaks.

Before too long, he had finished, and she hadn't looked in his direction, just for his own sake, even though of course they had talked while he cooked, and after he had served up two bowls full, he came and sat next to Siren on the lounge and put down a steaming hot bowl of barbecue pork noodles. It smelt absolutely divine, and she looked at him with her jaw dropped, nearly drooling over the smell and how it looked, and he smiled before handing her a pair of chopsticks.

Not wasting a second, she picked up a few noodles and a piece of pork, put it in her mouth and nearly keeled over then and there. It was absolutely amazing. She tried to find words for the beautiful dish, but it just wouldn't happen. Renji was right. Hisagi was a _mindblowing_ cook.

"I think I'll have to get you to make me lunch every Sunday." she said with her mouth half-full, being incredibly charming.

"I could deal with that. It would certainly be a great way to end the week." he responded after chuckling at her speaking with her mouth full, enjoying how comfortable she must feel around him to do that.

"Awesome...You know what the only bad thing about that will be?" the pale-skinned woman asked, actually swallowing her food before speaking this time.

"What's that?"

"That all through the week, I'll have to eat my shitty cooking. Well, it was satisfactory before, but now it's just terrible compared to this."

"No way! That grilled fish, chicken skewers, tonjiru and rice we had yesterday was awesome!" Hisagi protested, honestly shocked that she thought that was bad. He really enjoyed the variety and simplicity of that meal.

"Maybe because that's some of the easiest stuff to cook, so I make it all the time." Siren chuckled under her breath, knowing that she cooked that kind of stuff at least 2 or 3 times a week.

"Even more reason why it was awesome, because you know exactly how to cook it right from experience." he continued to protest, insistent that she had made a good meal.

She rolled her eyes melodramatically and poked her tongue out at him, forgetting his earlier warning. The smirk he had on his face fell and his eyes were on her mouth. When she noticed, nervousness set in a little and she unconsciously bit her lip.

That was it. He couldn't hold back any more.

It happened faster than she realised it. He put his bowl and chopsticks down, reached out and put one hand around the back of her neck, and the other one around her waist, pulled her towards him and kissed her, then let her go and moved away just as fast.

For the moment he was a bit too shy to look at her, so he picked up his bowl again and continued eating, even though he knew her gaze hadn't left him. It took him a few seconds, but he built up the courage to look at her. She was blushing scarlet and corners of her mouth were turned upwards slightly, almost forming an embarrassed smile.

"..uh...sorry 'bout that." he muttered quietly, wondering whether he should've just restrained himself instead of acting purely on impulse.

"Don't be." she assured him, just as quietly, shaking her head, but looking at her lap.

He watched as her embarrassed smile changed into a shy but happy one and he smiled as well, glad that he didn't do the wrong thing. Maybe she felt the same way about him. Ever since he had seen her, he had thought she was amazingly good looking, but after getting to know her at work, and having the chance to hang out with her yesterday and today, he was sure that he really liked her.

She was just so much fun to be around and they just seemed to click in a way that he hadn't with any other woman on a level of romantic interest. The only other people he got along with just as well was Kira, Renji, Rangiku and Rukia.

For a while when she first started working at Seireitei Graphic Designs, he had a bit of a crush on Rangiku, but eventually felt better having her as a friend than trying to pursue a relationship with her and he was glad he did, because otherwise he would have still been hooked up on her and not realised how amazing the beautiful woman sitting next to him was.

They finished their lunch, and decided to put on a movie. After a long twenty minutes of decision making, they decided to put on a trilogy and watch them in order. It was mid-afternoon when the first one finished and the second one went on after a toilet and food/drink break.

By the end of it, they had moved so Hisagi had his arm around Ika's shoulders and she was leaning against his side. Occasionally, he'd nuzzle the top of her head making her smile. When the second movie was over, the sun was beginning to set and it was starting to get cold, so Siren turned on a few lights in the apartment so they could see and turned up the heating to a comfortable temperature, and since the TV was in perfect view from the kitchen, they decided to make dinner while watching the third movie.

Siren vaguely recalled how to make a dish Renji's mother used to make that she loved and had taught her to make a few times before. Steamed white rice, chicken breast and a honey mustard sauce. It was a bit more of a Western dish, but it was amazing, and even though she probably wouldn't make it as good as Renji's mother could, she'd give it a try.

Hisagi sat on the opposite side of the kitchen counter and watched curiously as Siren got out all the ingredients she needed and the utensils. Since he didn't seem to know what she was cooking up, she decided to let him help her out, just in case he liked it and wanted to make it at home.

Chances were that he'd end up being able to cook it better than she would anyway, being the clever bastard he was and all. They enjoyed the movie and she decided to take her time with dinner, especially since he was helping her and they both liked it when they had to wait around to stir something etc and Hisagi always took that chance to rest his chin on her shoulder, which was a bit too low for him to rest on, and wrap his arms around her waist.

The amount of physical contact passing between them had increased more and more since they'd met and had doubled in the last few hours, also becoming more affectionate and intimate than just an arm around the shoulder or a pat on the back.

At one point, she had pulled herself up to sit on the kitchen counter, her small, but toned legs dangling off the side and socked feet pointed towards the ground. The main part of the meal was simmering, the sauce being absorbed into the chicken, and the rice was being cooked slowly, but surely and Hisagi used his hips to nudge apart Siren's legs and pulled her towards him, resting his head on her chest.

She very much enjoyed his warmth, and she put one hand around to rest on the back of his head and let one fall over his shoulder to embrace his back. They stayed in that position for a few minutes until Siren's heightened sense of hearing picked up on the honey mustard sauce bubbling, which it wasn't really supposed to do while simmering.

With a quick yelp of surprise she leapt down gracefully, almost seeming to glide over to the stove in Hisagi's so-relaxed-that-he-was-nearly-asleep and smitten eyes and she quickly turned off the heat and lifted the hot saucepan off the element and onto small hot-mats that had already been placed next to the stove in preparation for this moment.

The rice was also ready and she served up the dish for both of them, not giving them too much since they had also had a decent sized lunch. Just the same as Hisagi's meal earlier, but in reverse, he took one try of the dish and looked at Ika as if he had just had some sort of enlightening epiphany.

And he had. But not just that the food was amazing. Also, after seeing her watch him with hopeful eyes, wanting to know if he had liked what she had cooked, he started to realise just how much the last 48 hours had made him like her. He wasn't just attracted to her, and thought she was really cool and wanted to get to know her any more.

Hisagi Shuhei really genuinely liked Tetsuya Ikazuchi.

He also had a hunch that these feelings wouldn't be going anyway any time soon, instead they would more than likely get stronger and stronger as each day went by. Five out of seven days a week, he saw her at work, and this week he had also seen her on Friday night, most of Saturday and also today.

After they had finished their delicious dinner, they both sighed contentedly in unison and they both chuckled when they noticed. Siren flipped the TV over to the normal channels and there wasn't much on so they just ended up talking about random things, but she made sure not to get on any topics that would make Hisagi ask about her past, which she never really bothered talking to any one about aside Renji, but he was around for at least half of it anyway.

But that was beside the point, she was really enjoying the conversation, even if it was only one that wasn't too in depth and personal, but wasn't too awkward either. Without realising it, they talked for hours, occasionally moving to a more comfortable position on the couch, or getting up to use the toilet or get something from the kitchen.

They talked about nearly anything and everything they could. Philosophy, history, religion, music, art, people and just life in general. Hisagi noticed that Ika was pretty pessimistic with most things such as people and religion, but had amazingly correct view points that backed up her statement in a way that was easy to understand.

She was witty, and almost three times more intelligent than he had originally realised and she was one of the most deep women he had ever known. It seemed that there were many times when this small, black-haired woman had contemplated the more mysterious things in life and tried to come up with her own answers.

Siren, on the other hand, gauged that Hisagi was more intelligent and deep than even he himself had realised, and she had almost opened up a Pandora's Box of thoughts for him to muse over. Every few minutes, she watched him stare into space with an indescribable expression and shake his head in realisation. He would then look up and smile at her with a happy glint in his eyes.

Eventually, they were both laying down, arms loosely wrapped around each other, with Siren's head resting on Hisagi's chest. Abruptly, he asked her a question that she had honestly expected to be asked much earlier, and not just by him, but by anyone except Renji.

"Why does Renji call you Siren?"

"Um, it's a bit of a long and round-a-bout story. I'm not really good with talking about my past, but it's nothing serious. Back when I first met Renji, he told off some bullies who were picking on me and I became friends with him pretty quickly and soon enough we were hanging out every other day. After that happened, I decided to take up self-defence classes, since I'm kind of small and any advantage would be a good one." she stopped and mock-glared at him as Hisagi restrained his laughter at her admitting she was small.

" _Anyway_ , my teacher, Yoruichi, ended up giving me private lessons because I got that good. One day, I invited Renji to come along and get taught a bit as well, since I figured it would be fun for us to train together. So he did, and we've trained together ever since. In class one day, we were learning about old mythological creatures and we all got to chose a partner and get assigned one to do a report on." she continued and was stopped before she could reveal the identity of her mythological creature.

"And you and Renji got assigned to do a report on Sirens." Hisagi half-asked, more or less just wanting confirmation on his guess.

"Yep. As we learnt about them, he started making more and more comparisons, just with the beautiful singing voices that lured sailors to wreck their ships on reefs, kind of like my being 'pretty' as he put it, luring in stupid young males who were only thinking about one thing, and ending up getting their ass kicked. So, eventually, Siren just became my nickname." Ika finished her story with a one-sided shrug and a neutral smile.

The TV was still making noise in the background, and their conversation continued until Siren eventually lost the battle with sleep and slowly slipped into her realm of dreams that never made any sense. Hisagi was also losing his battle and smiled tiredly, seeing her eyes shut and her face serene and peaceful, and only moments later, fell asleep himself.

* * *

It was around 6AM when she woke, feeling much colder than she did when she first went to sleep, curled up on the lounge...with Hisagi. She cracked her eyes open only to see a bit of light shining into the room, and she quickly noticed that she was in her bedroom, tucked up in her bed.

More importantly, and confusingly, Hisagi was nowhere to be found. She rubbed her sleep filled eyes and got out of bed, and went to walk out of her bedroom, only to just barely see a note stuck to the door. With a wince of pain from the momentary headache caused by turning a light on after being in the dark for so long, her eyes eventually adjusted enough for her to read the note.

_Siren,_

_I woke up at sunrise and moved you to the bedroom because of all the sun coming into the apartment. I would have loved to stay until you woke up, but I don't have any work clothes for the day and I knew that if I didn't leave then, I probably wouldn't have left, or let you leave all day._

_So, I'm sorry if I freaked you out, and I'll see you at work later on._

_Thank you for an amazing Sunday._

_P.S. Could you bring some of the left over dinner from last night into work? I'd love to have it for lunch :)_

She almost blushed reading the first part of the note, feeling flattered that he really wanted to stay, and that if he didn't leave then that he probably wouldn't have let her leave. She chuckled at him asking her to bring in some leftovers so that he could have it for lunch, and thought that his little smiley face was cute. The note was really sweet and it put a smile on her face while she walked to quickly use the toilet.

Instead of going back to bed for another two hours or so, she decided to make a house call to the Urahara shop, knowing that Yoruichi got up at this time of morning to train and that Urahara would be getting ready to open up shop.

Throwing on a pair of old pants and a baggy shirt, and quickly running out to her car, in the early morning light, she drove over to the small shop and pulled up out the front, and as expected, Yoruichi was out the front, warming up for her morning work-out. The tan woman smirked after recognising the car, and waved at her when she got out of the car.

The smaller woman walked over and said good morning while hugging her old 'sensei'. Yoruichi seemed glad to see her, since she'd mostly been a bit too tired and busy to come over and see them lately, but she had made sure to call every few days, just to make sure Urahara wasn't getting into _too_ much mischief, though him behaving rarely ever happened, or he just made it seem that way.

As she had hoped, Yoruichi asked her to join in her morning work-out and for the next hour, they stretched, warmed up, and sparred for a while before cooling down and stretching again. No surprise, Yoruichi didn't go easy on her, and with Siren not having practised as much as she usually did lately, she was defeated pretty easily until her muscle memory kicked in and she fell back into the rhythm of it all, and then was mostly able to hold her own, her increased natural muscle strength since last time they had sparred giving her a much needed helping hand since her technique was lacking a little.

Siren worked up a bit of a sweat, being a bit out of shape and practice, earning her a mocking shake of the head from Yoruichi. A little after 7AM, Urahara popped his out of the shop's front door, holding a nice big tray with breakfast for all three of them on there. So, they all sat out the front of the shop, enjoying the morning sunlight and ate breakfast.

It was a really enjoyable start to the day, and even though Siren was a bit worn out from an hour long sparring session, the endorphins made her feel even better and she was glad to get a chance to see them in person, as well as have a meal with them.

By the time 8AM came around, the sun had fully risen and it was slowly increasing the temperature of the air around them. Urahara warned her of the time, the intelligent moron gauging that she usually got up around 8AM to get ready for work, since he knew that Renji started at 9AM, and he could assume that Ika started then as well.

She thanked him for letting her know and gently ruffled the striped hat on top of his head and hugged Yoruichi quickly before thanking them for breakfast and the training session and drove off after promising that they'd have to do it again another morning.

Both of them waved to her happily and she quickly drove off back home to get ready for work...


	5. Chapter 5 - We Cannot Deny

**Chapter 5 - We Cannot Deny**

Siren was just heading off to work after her wonderful training session and breakfast with Yoruichi and Urahara early that morning. She was still feeling good and it would be pretty hard to change her good mood. After she walked in the front door, as always she greeted Nanao, then she went into Ukitake's office and talked to him for a few minutes before excusing herself, quickly putting some things in the break room fridge and going over to her desk.

Rukia was always the first person there aside from Nanao and Ukitake and she greeted her and straight away, Siren could tell that she was absolutely busting to tell her and Rangiku what had happened over the weekend. She grinned after seeing Rukia drift off and stare into space with a shadow of a smile on her face, and snapped out of it after their blonde co-worked sat down in the seat next to Siren.

"Morning ladies. How were your weekends?" Rangiku said knowingly, and she too was busting to tell the other two women about what had happened over her weekend and to find out what happened.

"Interesting." Siren answered cryptically, not wanting to spoil too much just yet.

"Amazing. I don't know why I didn't think of doing it earlier." Rukia answered next, smiling dreamily and eye glinting.

"Well, tell us about it!" Rangiku was bouncing a little in her seat with excitement and she went to the extent of moving her chair so that the three women were sitting in a semi-circle. Siren was looking towards Rukia with a lop-sided smirk, trying to keep composed, but also interested.

"Renji rang me at about 9AM, and we organised that we'd meet up at a small cafe for lunch and go from there. He was so nervous, but he was trying so hard to impress me. When we were eating, I could see his hands shaking and he could barely look at me sometimes because he guessed that I knew he was nervous as hell." she recalled, getting the mental image in her head.

"Sounds exactly like him." Siren rolled her eyes, picturing perfectly how that Aka Pine would have looked whilst trying to eat on a date with the girl that he had been infatuated with for most of his life.

"After lunch, we went to the movies and we both enjoyed it so much. Really, it was such a funny movie and we've been laughing about it all weekend. When the movie finished, we kind of had that little awkward moment where we both knew that we didn't want to part ways yet, but didn't know how to go about saying it. Instead, he just drove us back to his place and we hung out for the rest of the day, and he drove me home at about 9PM and kissed me on the cheek at the door!" the violet-eyed woman touched her hand to her right cheek, getting the fluttering sensation of Renji's lips there again.

"I'll bet that he wanted to do much more than that!" Rangiku whispered to Siren, even though Rukia was supposed to hear it, and when she did her jaw dropped and her cheeks blushed scarlet and turned away from the other two, knowing that both her and Renji wanted to do more, but were just too shy.

"Anyway. He texted me, letting me know that he got home alright, and thanked me for a great day and that he was so glad that he finally built up the courage to do it. It was so sweet. He also called me the next day, and we talked for about two hours before he said he had to go and hung up. I was a bit worried that I'd done something wrong, but then about twenty minutes later, he was standing in my doorway, telling me he just had to see me."

"He's such a sook when he wants to be." Siren chuckled quietly and shook her head, knowing how soft Renji was when it came to Rukia.

"Yeah. He stayed for dinner, and then he left at about 8, but this time he actually kissed me! It was quick, and we were both terribly nervous, but it was adorable!" Rukia sounded like a teenage school girl talking about her crush, and both Rangiku and Siren were smiling wide at Rukia's happiness.

"What about you Rangiku? How was hanging out with Kira?" Rukia asked and Siren nodded in agreement, wanting to know the details as well.

The beautiful woman grinned and twirled a bit of her hair around her finger as she spoke. "He picked me up from my place a little before lunch time and we went to the park and had a really nice picnic. It was so sweet, and he put it all together himself. I could tell that he tried really hard on it. Most of the time, he was a bit to embarrassed to talk, but he barely took his eyes off me!" she bounced in her chair again, grinning and laughing happily.

Siren and Rukia looked at one another, both completely taken in by Rangiku's charisma and we both smiling and laughing as well within moments.

"Afterwards, we just sat around for an hour or so, just watching all the people enjoying the park and then we decided to go for a walk around the centre of town and we stopped for coffee for a while before he went to drop me off at my place. We got to the door, and I didn't want it to be over so I asked him to come inside. We just talked for ages about anything and everything and before we knew it, it was dark. He decided it was probably time for him to go, and he hugged me at the door, and I think he was going to kiss me, but he was too scared so he left but he texted me saying he had a great time later on." Rangiku looked towards where Kira's desk was, even though Siren's desk was blocking her view.

"Then on Sunday he took me out to lunch and we just talked again for hours and hours and he kissed me on the cheek when he was saying goodnight. It was really sweet to see the little smile on his face." Rangiku smiled before turning to the last person to speak about their weekend.

"Your turn!" Rangiku said in a sing-song voice and pointed to a very embarrassed looking Siren.

"Yeah, I know. Well, Hisagi came to pick me up at like 8AM and I was still asleep, but I woke up when he knocked on the door. He took me out to this really nice little cafe for breakfast, and it was so awesome that I'm going to make it a weekly thing. Then we went to pick up my motorbike, which I love by the way, and I took him out for a spin on it. After that, we went back to my place and I made lunch, then we just hung out until about 5PM, then he headed home."

"No kiss at the door?" Rangiku asked, kind of shocked that Hisagi didn't at least peck her on the cheek.

"He hugged me, but I think he could tell that I was still a bit nervous over the whole thing and he didn't want to rush me. However! He came over on Sunday as well. It was a bit before lunch time and he just rocked up and I was a bit confused, but he came in and saw one of the drawings I had done of him that morning and embarrassed me with it. I got it back off him after mucking around for a minute, and then his stomach grumbled that loudly that even from the other side of the room I could hear it loud and clear."

All three girls laughed for a moment over Hisagi's stomach growling and Siren collected herself after a few moments to continue the story, and the other two women calmed down enough to hear what Siren was saying.

"So we went to the big department store in town, and we just acted like kids. It was hilarious. He was pushing the trolley and I'd be standing in an aisle and he'd run past, then lift his feet up so he just kept going past and pull a different stupid face every time. It was such a crack up. Then I sat on the front and we went all the way down one aisle and I was doing a funny heroic pose and yelling out stupid stuff." she shook her head in amusement at the memory of rolling down the aisles in the shops.

"Anyway, after our little shopping trip, we went back to my place and he cooked, the _best lunch_... _ever._ I tell you, I nearly died. Oh, and when I'd poked my tongue out at him earlier on, he told me not to do it and I was like 'Why not?' and he said 'Do it again and you'll find out', but I could tell that he didn't think it was a bad thing, but I totally forgot about it later and I did it again. I'll bet you can guess what he did."

"He kissed you?" Rukia said with quiet excitement.

"Yep. I was sitting there for like a whole minute after thinking 'Whoa'. It was just so sudden and...yeah." she trailed off, not knowing what else to say. "After that, we just watched a few movies and I cooked dinner. Then we eventually fell asleep on the couch. I woke up this morning all tucked up in bed and he left me a note on my door."

"What did it say?" Rangiku asked, her body leaning forward subconsciously in anxiousness.

"Um, he said that he woke up at sunrise and moved me into the bedroom because of the sun shining into the apartment and that he would have liked to stay until I woke up, but he didn't have any work clothes and...here's the real kicker, 'and I knew if I didn't leave then, I probably wouldn't have left, or let you leave all day'." she quoted directly from the note itself and the dropped jaws and the 'Oh' sounds she got from her co-workers told her that they both knew _exactly_ what Hisagi meant.

"Then it just said thank you, and he asked me to bring in some of the leftover dinner we cooked last night so he could have it for lunch, so I just put it all in containers and brought enough in for everyone since we made a lot. It's just in the break room fridge, and everyone's name is on a container."

"You are amazing. Is it lunch yet?" Rangiku said, being very impatient to try what Siren had brought in for them all. It was so sweet of her to do that for everyone.

"Not just yet. But I think I'm going to get my work started for the day, and before we know it, it will be time for lunch." Rukia stated, always being the diligent one.

"Good idea." Siren agreed, then turned to her computer which had booted up and was now waiting to do whatever she needed.

The boys all came and said hello when they arrived, and Hisagi was actually there first out of all of the three men. He popped his head over the desks and greeted all both Rangiku and Rukia, asking politely how their weekends were, before saying good morning to Siren with a smug smirk on his face, which Siren pointedly tried to ignore, knowing that she wouldn't get the mental image out of her mind for the whole day.

Rukia and Rangiku acted completely casual as Hisagi and Siren had a mini, silent battle of wits and self control through their eyes, each waiting for the other to look away first. After a few moments Siren pulled out her secret weapon, and poked her tongue out at him. His eyes went wide for a second before he managed to compose himself, and giving her a nod of acknowledgement, telling her that she'd won.

After he turned away and walked back towards his own desk, knowing he'd been beat, and he'd been beat very easily, chuckling under his breath and shaking his head along the way. Rangiku and Rukia both turned to the woman in between them and laughed silently for a few minutes over what had just happening before turning back to their computer screen moments before Renji and Kira greeted them.

As per usual, they made idle conversation here and there whilst doing their work, occasionally asking each other for opinions on particular styles, or colours and giving critiques and compliments where it was necessary and deserved.

Before they realised it, it was lunch time and everyone finished up whatever they were currently doing before making their way to the break room. Siren heated up and handed out each container of food, and took Nanao and Ukitake's out to them as well.

Ukitake nearly keeled over when he tasted it, making Siren almost soil herself for a moment before realising that he was just enjoying it. He thanked her and continued eating, and Siren made her way back to the break room to eat her own container which should have heated up by now. Renji recognised the dish, and smiled knowingly at Siren while eating, and Hisagi had already finished his whole container.

Hisagi gently pulled her towards him and thanked her for bringing it to work, and also thanked her for the great weekend. She smiled and returned his thanks with her own and sat down at the table to eat her lunch, which everyone enjoyed and thanked her for, before finishing up and getting back to work aside Renji, who waited for Siren to finish so he could talk to her for a moment.

"So, how'd it go?" he asked, eyeing her off to gauge her reaction.

"Not now. Come over after work, and we can talk all about it." she responded with a hint of mystery in her tone and went to walk out of the break room, but stopped in the doorway and spun around on one foot. "By the way, I'm glad to know you grew enough balls to actually kiss her!" she smirked and laughed at the read-head's scowl before heading back to her desk, and getting back to work.

Several hours later, the day had ended and everyone headed home, and Renji quickly changed into something more comfortable and grabbed his work clothes for the next day before going to Siren's place. He knocked on the door when he arrived and opened it knowing that she would have left it unlocked for him. Renji sat down on the couch and watched Siren walk into the bedroom, and come back out with some more comfortable clothes on, go to the fridge and get herself a beer and another for him.

She sat down on the couch next to him, handed him his beer and they both cracked the bottle open in unison, took a drink, and still nothing had been said, until Renji finally spoke up.

"What do you mean I finally grew some balls?" he asked as if she had only made her previous comment moments before and Siren snorted in laughter at his slightly hysterical tone.

"Dude. You've been ass over head for Rukia for...how many years now?" she teased, making his scowl return.

"I never wanted to ruin our friendship, which is why I never asked her out. And...I never knew she felt the same." he added quietly, sounding much happier than when he spoke before.

"She probably has the whole time, but just never really known it because the concept was never really brought up." Siren answered sagely, knowing Rukia well enough now to know what she was like.

"Maybe so. But it doesn't matter now. We've taken that step forward. I assume Rukia told you and Rangiku all about what happened?"

"Yep. Oh, by the way, you are such a sook." Siren chuckled under her breath, but smiled when she saw that Renji looked genuinely happy.

"What about you, huh? Huh? Huh? What happened between you and Hisagi?" he nudged her with his elbow with every word he said, making her whole body move and she simply laughed and shook her head.

"Well, he woke me up at like 8 o'clock, and we went to a cafe for breakfast. Then we picked up my bike, took it out for a spin, I cooked lunch, then we just hung out for a few hours then he headed home. And on Sunday, I was just sitting around and he dropped by, and we just hung out again." she shrugged casually, not really knowing how else to elaborate on 'hung out'.

"He made lunch, and by the way, you were so right. He is an amazing cook. I nearly _died_. I think I've got some leftovers in the fridge if you want some. Anyway, we ended up falling asleep on the couch and I woke up at like 6 and I was confused since I was all tucked up in bed. He left a note, and it said that he woke up because of the sunlight in the apartment, and he moved me to the bed. Also, that he left after he did that because otherwise 'he wouldn't have left, or let me leave all day'."

"Ah. Fair enough then." Renji nodded slowly, understanding the double entendre easily.

"Yeah. I went to Urahara's this morning too, instead of going back to bed. I joined in on Yoruichi's morning work out and Urahara made breakfast for the three of us, so we sat out in the sun and ate. It was nice. All four of us should do it one morning."

"Definitely. Maybe we could even convince Urahara to join in on the work out." he offered casually, then he and Siren shared a moment of staring at each other, trying not to laugh at the prospect of Urahara actually not being lazy for once, but both lost it moments later, and cracked up.

"So, are you going to tell me about your weekend?" Siren asked expectedly.

"Rukia already told you."

"Yes, but I haven't heard it from _your_ perspective. And I know you want to tell me anyway."

Renji sighed and shrugged. "Well, I rang Rukia in the morning and we organised that we'd go to a cafe for lunch, then we'd go to the movies. I very nearly put a spare pair of underwear in my car because I was so nervous." he said seriously and glared at Siren when she started laughing. She breathlessly apologised and he continued.

"Anyway. We got to the cafe, and it was really nice, just the two of us hanging out. Of course, I was still shitting myself, but I was enjoying myself enough to forget about it for the most part. After we finished lunch, we headed over to the movies and I tell you now, it was so good. The movie was good, but I mean just cracking up laughing over the same things with Rukia. I know we've been friends for so many years, but I could just feel the difference in the atmosphere. I can't really describe it."

"The way that you interpreted things that she said and did, and what you noticed about each other changed. I know what you mean." Siren clarified, having a pretty good idea of what Renji was saying, ever since her and Hisagi had taken their...relationship?...to the next level.

"Yeah. That's exactly it. So, we laughed our heads off for two hours, and then afterwards we had one of those awkward moments when you don't really know how to say that you don't want to part ways yet, and you don't want to say it unless the other person does want to. But I built up the courage and just drove us back to mine, and we hung out until around 9 o'clock-ish. I kissed her cheek at the door as well." he added quietly, trailing off and averting his eyes from her, knowing that she'd probably start teasing him.

"I'm very proud of you." Siren stated, glad that he was finally going for it with Rukia, instead of cowering away from it like he had for so many years.

He smiled and looked at her appreciatively. "Thanks. After I got home, I texted her, thanking her for a great day and so on. On Sunday, I rang her and we talked for about two hours or so, and I can't remember what we were talking about, but I remember she laughed at something, and it was just such a moment that I'll never get out of my head."

"And then you said you had to go and hung up, making her worry for like twenty minutes that she'd done something wrong before you rocked up at her doorstep." Siren completed his next sentence for him, and she could immediately see that he felt kind of bad for making Rukia worry.

"Yeah. She said that to me when I got there. I didn't mean to worry her, I just really wanted to see her." he said with his chin to his chest.

"I know, I know. Keep going."

"I ended up staying for dinner, and I decided to head home at about 8. And um...iksdherathdoor."

"What?" Siren asked, already knowing what he said, but just wanting him to say it properly.

"I kissed her at the door!" he exclaimed and then averted his eyes from her in embarrassment.

Siren laughed at his being embarrassed, and patted him on the shoulder before finishing her beer. His was nearly empty too, so she gestured towards the bottle, and he drank the last mouthful before handing her the empty bottle, and she walked over and put them both in her recycling bin before grabbing another two beers from the fridge.

They both cracked the bottles open simultaneously, took a mouthful and sighed after, enjoying the cold beverage. Siren turned to him, a devious look on her face, and waited for him to realise why. She had just remembered a conversation that they had many years ago, when the topic of 'the mystery girl' now known as Rukia, had come up.

_"Dude, that woman was totally checking you out. She was really pretty, you should talk to her!" Siren encouraged him as they walked down the street, knowing that he'd never try to chat up a woman without some sort of external force._

_"No. I don't have much interest in women. You know that." he responded with a resigned tone, having had this conversation with Siren many times before._

" _Well, I've come to conclusion of why you don't have an interest in women, and why you won't tell me about your lack of interest in women..." she stopped walking and paused dramatically, looked around and stepped quietly over to him and whispered in his ear. "Are you gay?"_

"What? _No, I'm not gay." he put his hand over his face and sighed before continuing. "I just...I already am interested in someone and I have been for so long. The only reason why I haven't gone for it with her is that I don't want to ruin our friendship and I don't think she feels the same." he answered reluctantly, knowing that it would have to come to this at some point during his and Siren's friendship._

" _It's not me, is it?" she asked, quite sure that it wasn't, but just wanting to be sure._

" _No, it's not you. Look, I don't really want to go in depth about it, but now you know. Okay?"_

" _Okay. Just so long as I know what's going on with you. Let me know if you ever want to talk about it." she put an arm up on his shoulder and smiled at him, and after a moment he nodded and returned the smile. "And if someday, you do actually get the courage to ask this 'mystery girl' out and it goes well, prepare for a big 'I told you so!'. And I'll make you tell me that I'm right."_

_"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." he chuckled and they continued walking down the street..._

"I told you so." she said simply, and he frowned at her for a moment before remembering the conversation.

"You were right." he rolled his eyes, and shook his head and her triumphant expression and puffed up chest.

"Of course. I'm always right, Aka Pine." Siren said melodramatically and put her hand to her forehead and sighed, as if it was such a burden to be right all the time.

They both laughed and watched some TV for a few hours and just hung out like they would back when Siren was living in Karakura Town. It was always just watching TV or watching a few movies, idle conversation, a few beers and snacks here and there, but it was the time that they both enjoyed so much, especially because they had barely done it since Siren had moved back, and in the time that she had been away, they'd only seen each other every month or so. She had seen Urahara and Yoruichi even less.

But fortunately enough, she had decided to get over everything that had happened in this town, since Renji was probably the best thing to have ever happened to her – she'd never really had many friends – and she had felt that it was time to face her demons and come back to where her heart really was...with her best friend.

There was any 'home' for her, because home was just wherever the people she cared about were. Basically, those 'people' really only consisted of Renji, Yoruichi and Urahara. That had changed now though. She could add five more people to her list. Rukia, Rangiku, Kira, and Hisagi, and even Ukitake, who had been absolutely wonderful to her and had even invited her to have tea with him at his favourite tea-house on the weekend.

She thought about how her life had literally done a 360 since she'd moved back, and she recalled seeing the advertisement for the apartments for sale in Karakura Town a while ago, and briefly thought about moving back, until someone had broken into her house in the middle of the night. She had also stumbled on the advertisement for Seireitei Graphic Design and it had made her consider the idea a little further.

Too bad for them, she was at home, and quickly took care of them and called the police. She was sure that they wouldn't be trying that again any time soon, especially after the beating she had given him. The next morning, she had called her boss and told him that she would be handing in her resignation letter that day, and straight after, called the real estate agent advertising the apartments and had told them that she would be selling her place, and buying one of the apartments as soon as possible.

Luckily, her place sold within two weeks of her putting it on the market, and her offer for the apartment had been accepted. She had started packing up immediately and booked a mover's truck to transport all of her furniture and larger boxes, while she would just take all the boxes of clothes and basic stuff with her in her ute.

The night before she was leaving to head back to Karakura Town, Renji had left her a message while she was sleeping. She had planned to just rock up at his doorstep the next day, but rang him in the morning, when she was just about to leave, and told him that she was moving back. She was sure that he probably would have nearly cried with joy if he wasn't at work.

Before she knew it, she had driven all the way back to Karakura Town and pulled up out the front of her new apartment building to see Renji's disgruntled expression, which quickly turned into happiness when he saw her. It only took her a matter of days to adjust to the move, and after a while, it felt like she had only moved apartments instead of moved to a whole different city which was four hours away, stayed there for a little more than a year, and then come back after she'd just had enough of being so far away from the people she cared about.

Now, she was 'home' again, and felt more at 'home' than she ever had before. Her resistant heart had somehow let more people in, and as much as she didn't really want to admit it to herself, she was glad that it had.

Rukia, Kira, Rangiku, Hisagi and Ukitake were now a big part of her life, and it seemed that Hisagi may be breaking even more of her carefully constructed walls. It was a scary thing to think about, especially with what she'd been through the last – and only – time that she'd let someone in that far.

Wait...she had let Hisagi in. Even further than she'd realised. She was already enamoured with him, and he was feeling the same about her, of that she was sure. But was she ready to start something serious with him? Of that, she wasn't too sure. Last time, she had been treated wonderfully at first, just like every little girl dreamed of. But things started to change, and soon enough, she was thrown aside like she had never meant anything to him at all.

She could not, and would not allow herself to waste her time and love, just to be put through that again...


	6. Chapter 6 - All I Am

**Chapter 6 – All I Am**

_It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and it was Siren's only day off throughout the week. As usual, she spent this time working on her motorbike that she had owned for the past 2 months. She was sitting down out the front, the bike right in front of her, and a bunch of oily, greasy parts on the ground around her. As she replaced the little rubber seal that had worn away with usage, with a brand new one, she heard a car pull up out the front of her house that she was currently renting. She didn't pay any attention to it, since she lived on a main road, and it was pretty common that people pulled up out the front of her house._

_"Nice bike." said a distinctly male voice from a few metres away._

_Before speaking, she stopped what she was doing to turn her head towards the source of the voice and saw_ him _. He had tan skin, spiky, brown hair which was fairly long and parts at the back sat just on his shoulders. His eyes were also a vibrant brown, and as he walked closer to her, they seemed to suck her in. She noticed the motorcycle brand print on his shirt and smirked._

_"Thanks. It's got a bit more work to go before I get it on the road again, but it's coming along." she replied politely, but casually. Even though he seemed nice, she was still on her guard a bit just in case he actually wanted to steal the bike._

_"Cool. Actually, the reason I pulled up was to ask you if it's for sale. I've been looking for the same kind of bike for a few months now." he asked with a hopeful smile on his face._

_"Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't plan on selling it for quite a few years. I could probably put you onto a friend of mine who works in a second hand bike store to see if he has one." she offered and the hopeful smile on his face returned pretty quickly._

_She stood up and gave him the number of the second-hand bike store that she bought a lot of her parts and gear from, and even though she had no idea if he'd have any in stock, she thought that there was no harm in giving a fellow bike enthusiast a hand. It had taken her forever to find her bike, so she knew how much of a pain it was._

_"Thanks so much for that. I'll definitely give them a ring and see what they have. I'm Nioke Hayate, by the way." he introduced himself and grinned at her in a way that made her blink a few times before replying._

_"Nice to meet you Nioke-san. I'm Tetsuya Ikazuchi, but call me Siren." she answered and gave him a small nod of her head._

_"Please, just Hayate is fine." he corrected her and smiled happily before looking at his watch. "Well, I have to get going. I just came back from the grocery store. It was a pleasure meeting you Siren. Thank you for your help." he shook her head quickly and grinned again before walking off, getting in his car and continuing in the direction he came from._

_With an 'As you do' kind of whistle, Siren sat back down in front of the black and white coloured machine and continued working on the part she was fixing up only moments ago._

* * *

_The very next Sunday she was sitting out the front again, humming a small tune and putting the parts that she had sitting in the degreaser for a day or two back on. It had been a slow process, but when she had got the bike, she had pulled the whole thing apart, cleaned and degreased the entire motor, and replacing anything that needed to be replaced._

_She had to say that she wasn't all that surprised when she heard the unmistakable revving of a motorbike engine slowing and coming to a stop at the kerb in front of her house. The person riding the bike – which she noticed was exactly the same model as hers – dismounted and took their helmet off.  
_ __  
Nioke Hayate's face and hair were revealed from underneath the dark blue helmet he was wearing. He grinned at her and walked over to where she was sitting on the driveway, in the exact same spot as he had spotted her last week. She smiled back politely, and took notice of the bike. It looked like it could use a bit of work, and the engine sounded a little bit off, but most of her attention was on him.

_"Good afternoon, Siren." his smooth voice washed over for the second time in two weeks and she continued to smile as he walked across the grass and over to her._

" _Good afternoon, Hayate. I see you got the bike." she commented with a smirk, wondering if it was from her suggestion about the second-hand store._

" _It was from the second-hand store you gave me the number for. And really cheap too. He said there was a few things wrong with it, but nothing really serious. So I just wanted to thank you for your help again." he said as he watched her get up and walk over to the bike parked at the kerb._

_"Do you mind?" she asked, gesturing if she could start it up._

_He handed her the key in response and she started it up, listening for any tell-tale signs of what could be wrong. She knew most of the guys at the second-hand store, and one of them had a huge crush on her, so they always gave her exactly what she needed, but they've been known to mess people around a bit before, so she wouldn't be surprised if they sold Hayate something that was just going to break down on him in a couple of months._

_She heard the slight lugging of the engine, and it was barely staying on, so she did a quick job of adjusting a few cables so it would idle a bit higher. If Hayate tried to start it when the weather was very cold, he'd have a lot of trouble getting it started and keeping it going. He watched closely, but he wasn't watching what she was doing. He was watching_ her _._

_After she was happy that the engine was idling high enough, she nodded slightly, turned it off, and began to quickly inspect the rest of the bike. It look like there was a few leaks, which meant that some seals needed replacing and just some basic other things._

_"Well, I adjusted the idle speed, so it will be easier to start when it's cold, and there's a few leaks, so I'd say it would be a good idea to pull the engine apart, degrease the whole thing and replace all the seals that need replacing. Maybe look at a new exhaust pipe. Other than that, it should be alright. You'll probably find a few minor things when you tear it apart though." she surmised quickly, and shrugging when she'd finished speaking._

_"Um, to be honest, I'm not all that good with the mechanics side of bikes. I wouldn't be able to do it myself." he admitted reluctantly with a hand at the back of his head, and an embarrassed expression on his face. "Should I just take it to a bike mechanic?"_

_As soon as he asked, she got the perfect idea. "Well, that kind of thing costs a fair bit. Probably about $400 just for the labour, since they'll have to take the engine apart to check everything." she warned and watched as he thought for a moment. "How about this? If you want, I'll do it for you. I'll take $200 to do everything needed, I'll get the parts for you, and you just pay for the parts that the bike needs." she offered, and waited patiently for his answer._

_It probably wouldn't cost $400 for the labour, but truth was, she just kind of liked him and wouldn't mind having him around every Sunday. He was incredibly attractive and his brown eyes still sucked her in the way the did when she first saw him. Plus, she kind of had a feeling that he thought the same of her, especially since he had come all the way back to her place just to thank her._

_"Really? You'd do that?" he asked her incredulously, not really expecting her to be serious._

_"Yeah, I love working on bikes and cars. It's a win/win situation. You get what you need cheap, I get some extra money to save and we both make a new friend." she grinned at him, glad that he seemed interested in the idea._

_"But, what about your bike?" he asked, not wanting to impose at all._

_"It's done." she grinned bigger than ever now, almost forgetting about that fact until he mentioned it._

_Siren grabbed the key out of her pocket, walked over to it, and turned the ignition to the correct position and the bike roared to life. Instantly Hayate noticed the difference in how each bike sounded and he remembered how his bike still sounded a bit sluggish even after Siren had adjusted the idle speed. She revved the engine a little, and they both smirked deviously at the loud sound of the small engine. After a moment, she turned it off, putting the key back in her pocket and looked back at Hayate._

" _So, what do you reckon? Come and hang out here on Sunday's while we fix your bike and have a few beers?" she smirked and picked up her beer bottle that was mostly obscured by the mound of greasy and oily rags that were sitting on the ground._

_"Sounds good to me! How long do you reckon it will take?" he asked, hoping he could have it fixed up in a few weeks so he could ride it as soon as possible, but also wanting to delay it a little so he could hang out with Siren more._

" _I can't say until I rip the whole thing apart. A lot of the basic stuff is easy to fix, but I've never worked on your bike before, so there might be things that are a bit different than my own." she shrugged, knowing that a second-hand bike could have previously been modified and have different parts than a regular stock bike._

" _Well, let's just take our time. I still have my car so I have a way around, so that's not a problem." Hayate smiled at her, and she grinned back, knowing that she'd enjoy this._

* * *

 

" _Almost...done..." Siren said as she tightened up a few screws here and there._

_In the last four weeks, on every Sunday Hayate had come over and they had both completely pulled his engine apart, cleaned and degreased it all, replaced a few basic things here and there, adjusted this and that, sealed a few different things and finally, it was almost complete. He had learnt a lot more about engines from her than he ever would just by reading a book, and he was fairly confident that he could fix most things by himself now._

_During that time, they had gotten to know each other, and even though neither of them would ever admit it to one another, they both liked each other and it seemed that there was a bit of chemistry between them. Even after they had finished up on the bike for the day, Hayate would stay for dinner and they'd have a few beers and watch some TV or a movie before he headed home._

_Things were developing rather quickly between them, and now that the bike was done, he had hoped that he didn't just have to pay her the money he promised, thank her and then be on his way. Siren felt exactly the same. He was the only male that didn't treat her like 'one of the guys'. Renji was the only person who could do that without her feeling weird._

_After Siren and Hayate had filled the radiator with coolant, the engine with oil, the fuel tank with fuel and whatever other fluids the bike needed for it to run, and run properly without overheating, they both stood back and looked at their work before Siren broke the silence._

" _Well, there you go. Let's start it up, yeah." Siren grinned and took the key from Hayate's hand after he pulled it out of his pocket.  
_ _  
She turned the ignition to the start position and the bike had a bit of trouble turning over before it revved_ _and came to life. Hayate laughed and smiled happily, now certain that his bike wouldn't need anything fixed for quite sometime. Siren looked at him and they both smiled, but with a hint of sadness. They both knew that it was time to figure out how they'd go about trying to spend more time with each other._

_Siren was absolutely clueless and shy as hell about these things, so she'd couldn't even dream of having the courage to ask him to hang out with her, for no reason. Hayate on the other hand, he had been on a few dates with a few different girls, but he wouldn't have considered any of them his 'girlfriend' as such. All through high school, the girls had found him attractive, but he was more of the silent type who didn't worry about having 10 different friends. It was still mostly the same now as well, and he never really went out looking for a woman, but more or less just felt that it was better to wait and if something was meant to be, it was meant to be._

_He knew that he liked Siren, and he had a inkling that she liked him as well, so if she turned him down, he would just be back where he was right now. Sure, rejection would be the most painful result of his question, and he'd be a bit bummed out because it would have been the first time that he asked a girl out instead of the other way around. He didn't have much to lose but a bit of self-confidence._

_"Hey, um...thanks heaps for all of this." he said firstly, using it as an icebreaker. Nervousness was already setting in and he wondered whether he could keep his voice from wavering when he asked her. "I was...I was wondering if um...you'd want to...get dinner with me sometime?" he finally got out with a hopeful smile on his face knowing that he probably looked like an idiot right now._

_"I don't see why not." Siren answered nonchalantly, being much better at covering up what she was really feeling and thinking than he was._

_"Really?" he asked incredulously, his voice much higher than it usually was._

_She nodded in response and laughed as he turned away a little and whispered 'Yes!' very quietly and pumped his arm once in happiness. He turned back with a big smile on his face and she shook her head and rolled her green eyes at his silly antics._

_"How about next Saturday then?" he suggested excitedly, his smile turning into a grin the longer he looked at her._

_"Sounds good." she chuckled and he ran over and hugged her before helping her clean up all the tools and anything else they had used for fixing the bike. She had picked him up from his place today, since she guessed that they'd finish the bike today, so after saying goodbye, he hopped on and went on his merry way home, smiling the whole time..._

* * *

" _Come on, just do it!" Hayate said breathlessly._

_"I don't want to. Please don't make me." Siren pleaded desperately with him._

_"No, it's happening. Come on!" he commanded as he stood up, grabbed her hand and led her to the little dance floor in the middle of the restaurant he had taken her to. They were waiting for their meals and had been listening to the band that had been playing music for the past half hour. There were many other people who were up dancing and enjoying themselves, and Hayate thought it looked like fun._

_He led her along, even though she tried to get out of his grip, and then pulled her close to him and started dancing with her, but nothing professional. They were just having fun and being a bit silly. For the next few minutes as the song played, they stepped, twirled, twisted, and spun around in time with the music until Siren noticed their food was waiting at their table._

_Finally they sat down, much to her relief since she wasn't too much of a dancer and began to converse while they ate. They had a great time so far tonight, from Hayate coming over to them riding their bikes out to town where they pulled up and walked along the main street just as the sun was setting before going to dinner._

_Siren had very much enjoyed herself so far and she was glad that Hayate had built up the courage to ask her out. It was the first time any male had acknowledged that she was a woman. Well, aside Renji, but with him it was okay, because they were best friends and gender wouldn't make anything different to their friendship. She felt almost overjoyed that someone had decided to take notice of her, and Renji had already heard all about it over the phone, and had been warning her that if Hayate hurt her, that the tattooed, red-haired man would have to take matters into his own hand._

_Of course, Siren had ignored his protests and warning, but was very glad to know that Renji was worried about her being out with a guy for the first time, especially because he hadn't met Hayate yet. Renji did want her to be happy and one day be able to say that she was happy with the person she was with, whoever it may end up being, but he was just a bit shocked at how out of the blue it was._

_They had hung out a few days after Siren had first met him, and she had mentioned how he had complimented her on the bike and how she had given him the number of the second-hand store and she'd also rang him a little while after to tell him about how Hayate had come back the next Sunday and agreed for her to help him do up the bike._

_She was totally crushing on Hayate and he seemed to be feeling the same towards her. He was so casual, laid back, funny yet much more deep than you'd think at first. They'd been talking about almost anything that came to their minds, and had barely stopped smiling and laughing all evening._

_After they'd finished their meal, they decided to head back home, and Hayate insisted on making sure that Siren got home safely. They rode back to her place, each on their bike and arrived only a few minutes later. Hayate walked with her to the front door after she'd wheeled her bike into the garage and he almost started shaking with nervousness._

_He wanted nothing more but to take her inside and ravish her, but he had planned on being respectful and wanted to take things slowly with her. Instead of acting on his urges, when she turned to him after unlocking and opening the front door, he hugged her and very quickly gave her a chaste kiss on her lips before bidding her goodnight, heading back to his bike, and started off towards home._

_Siren sighed happily as she watched him go, stepped inside the house before shutting and locking the door behind her. Straight away, she noticed the faint smell of beer, and a scent that could only indicate one thing. Renji was here._

_More than likely, he had used her spare key that she gave him (they had swapped ages ago to make it easier if they were hanging out after work and one of them finished earlier than the other) and must be in the house waiting for her to get back. It was about 10 o'clock, so he would probably just be watching the TV, and only a moment later, she heard the sound of the TV from the living room in the house.  
_

" _I'm home." she said aloud to let him know she was back, and to wake him up if he had fallen asleep, which apparently he had done, because she heard a slightly started snort and a groan before she saw the long, red, spiky that decorated his head pop up from above the lounge._

_He stood up and stretched before he welcomed her back and followed her to the bedroom, where she was headed. She asked him how long he had been here for and why he had come, getting the answer she had thought of only moments ago._

" _So, how'd it go?" he asked with a curious, and concerned tone._

 _"You don't have to say it like_ that _, you know. And it went extremely well, thank you very much." she retorted with a satisfied 'Hmph' when he rolled his eyes._

_"Are you going to go out with him again?" he asked, his tone still not changing._

_"Yes. I think I might. And you can meet him next time as well, so maybe you'll shut up and stop worrying so much. And do you think that I would have gone out with him in the first place if I didn't think he was a decent guy?" she added while looking at him with a 'Duh' kind of expression._

_"Alright, well I won't stop worrying, but I trust your judgement. If you think it's worth it, I won't stop you. But just...be careful, okay. This is your first time going through all this stuff and trust me, it's harder than it seems at first._ Much _harder." he advised sagely, his tone now one of reluctant resignation and he went to turn away and walk towards the couch but her voice stopped him._

_"How would you know?" she said quietly, but not with the harsh, vindictive tone that would normally come along with that sort of comment in this context. In fact, he turned around and saw her smirking. "You still haven't asked out this Rukia I've heard so much yet so little about, even after knowing her since you were kids! You're pretty hopeless yourself, Aka Pine!" she laughed loudly and smacker her knee melodramatically._

_He chuckled and rolled his eyes, knowing that she was right. If he looked back, he really had loved Rukia for probably the whole time he had known her, maybe he had even felt something when he had first seen her as a young boy but just didn't remember nor understand it at the time. He had wanted to try and gather up the courage to ask Rukia out for years, but every time he tried to, it just didn't end up happening for him. Someday, he might get the chance._

" _Anyway, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Whatever, enough about all that. Let's just chill out and have some beers." Siren said and grabbed two cold beer bottle from the fridge and handed one to Renji._

_"That really is your answer for everything, isn't it?" the red-head smirked while he watched her crack open the lid._

_"Well, yeah...but it works though, doesn't it?" she asked rhetorically with a devilish grin on her face._

_Renji only replied with a sound of subtle agreement and a roll of his eyes, knowing that it was mostly true, that no matter about what was going on in their lives, they could always just hang out together and have a few beers while watching some TV or a movie and immediately have their heads cleared, even just a little._

_Neither of them would have expected such a good friendship and a strong bond to come out of that day so many years ago, when Siren was being picked on by some bullies, and the red-haired boy that had saved her from being pushed into the mud._

_Even though they only really had each other right now, they couldn't have been happier..._

* * *

 

8 Months Later...

_"I'm home!" Siren yelled out into the house, waiting to hear Hayate speak back to her, unless he'd fallen asleep on the couch like he usually managed to do on his day off. She didn't hear anything aside the TV going even as she walked down the hallway, put her things down on her bed and went back to the living room to find Hayate, not asleep, but sitting up with his head in his hands._

_"Hayate..." she whispered quietly to herself and quickly moved to sit next to him. "What's the matter?" she asked with concern in her voice. He barely moved his head in her direction, acknowledging that she was there, but didn't say anything.  
_ __  
They both sat there, Hayate with his head in his hands, his eyes shut, and Siren sitting next to him, wondering what the hell was going on with him. She would sit there and wait until he was ready to tell her. It took him almost twenty minutes to gather his thoughts enough to speak.

" _I...I don't think that I can d-do this any more." he finally stuttered out, and still didn't move his head from his hands._

_"What do you mean? You can't do what any more?" the black-haired woman sat looking confusedly at him._

_"Us." he responded simply, and immediately Siren's eyes were wide as saucers and her heart in her throat._

_She tried to choke out words, but only stuttered syllables came out and she just tried to think about anything she might have said or even done that might have upset him without her realising it. Even though she didn't mean to, she could be a little bit oblivious at times and not notice if she had done something wrong._

_After a minute of struggling to find her voice, and her usual casual, confident attitude, she gradually managed to say something along the lines of 'Why?'. Hayate sighed loud and slow and it took him a moment before he could speak._

" _I honestly don't know if you really feel the way you say you do about me." he explained slowly, trying not to let his voice waver any more than it already was._

" _You already know that I'm terrible with that stuff. I really have tried so much to work on that, and you've commented several times on how I've been more affectionate and what not. So it can't be that. I know you're lying to me." she could see it on the face that was mostly concealed by his hands that he wasn't upset about that, though it had got to him quite a bit for a while before he had brought it up with her._

_He turned away from her when she put a hand on his shoulder and tried to lift him up and make him face her and shrugged out of her grip. Her previous upset was being cancelled out by his reluctance to tell her what was really wrong. She was beginning to wonder whether he had done something and was trying to put her in the wrong so he could break it off._

_"How do you feel about Renji?"_

_Her jaw dropped._

" _How do I feel about Renji? He's my best friend! He's my surrogate brother! How do you think I feel about him? I care about him so much and I'd do anything for him! What does this have to do with us?" she asked incredulously, hoping that he wasn't seriously thinking that she was involved with Renji._

_"Well, how come whenever you are in a bad mood and are feeling like shit, he can always manage to put a smile on your face and I can't? Tell me that!" he raised his voice and actually lifted his head from his hands and looked at her when he spoke._

_"I've known Renji since we were in high school! I've known you for 8 months! I really care about you, and I know that you feel the same, but even with all my inexperience in these matters, I know you can't just make a bond like Renji and I have overnight! You're not stupid Hayate, you should know that." she raised her voice as well, being angered by his ridiculous accusations and thoughts._

_"I know that, but I would have thought that by now I could have that effect on you as well! This isn't anything against Renji, he's a great guy, but that's exactly the problem. How am I supposed to know that you haven't had feelings for him in the past?"_

_"Because I've told you that I've only ever thought of Renji as a friend and a brother. That's how. Look, if you_ _are seriously going to accuse me of this, and treat me this way because you're too stupid to realise that I love you, even after everything I have done and do for you, then get the fuck out of my house, and out of my life. I don't need this from you." she yelled at him, finally losing her temper with him._

" _Fine. But if I walk out that door, don't expect to see me again." he warned her with a glare._

_She held his gaze and glared three times as hard at him. "I hope not to."_

_Within three minutes, it was over, and he was out the door..._

 


	7. Chapter 7 - Pride and Grace

**Chapter 7 – Pride and Grace**

It was Tuesday morning and Renji was waking Siren up for work with the same approach he always did. A few minutes later she came out and they made a quick and easy breakfast and they had a coffee each before getting dressed. Siren knew her ute was nearly out of fuel, and she had already put away most of her paycheck in a savings account that she couldn't touch, she knew she'd have to take the bike to work.

So, instead of putting on her pair of flats, she put on a pair of joggers and pulled on her bike pants over her tidy work ones, and put her leather jacket on over the top of her work shirt. Her helmet was on the small table just inside the front door and when Renji had grabbed his stuff, they both walked out said door and Siren grabbed her helmet.

She still remembered everything that she had thought about last night, and she vaguely recalled that Hayate had been in her dreams, though she didn't remember what had happened even in the slightest. She wasn't sure what to do about Hisagi, but she didn't know whether she would be ready to get in another relationship yet.

Her mind was still going in spirals about all the memories she had tried to block out so she could move on with her life, but deep down, she knew that at some point she would have to face those demons and confront the problem head on. The young woman didn't know whether she was ready for that just yet, even though the heart she didn't like admitting she had was still aching for someone to accept all of her, as a friend, as a partner and a lover.

To this very day, her pride was still tainted by how much of a fool Hayate had made her feel like, to manage making her fall for him, just by being himself and eventually destroying her all within a few minutes and a few words that tore her heart out of her chest and left it in the dirt to rot. Although, she was still absolutely fuming with him for what he had said, she still loved him – even though she wasn't 'in love' with him any more - nonetheless.

During that time, her art had become much more expressive and full of sorrow than what it usually was prior to all that happening. She had even started writing poetry, and a few words that she had weaved together to form something that made sense to her, and only her, had always stuck with her, and no matter what was going on in her life, she had clung to these words desperately to get her through whatever was happening.

 _The colour of your words blinded me._  
And I can taste the blood of my sanity.  
My world, I can no longer feel.  
This water flows unto me..  
So I scream until someone hears me.  
These months should be so minor.  
Grace is gone. 

Everything she had felt was in these few lines, like when she had first met Hayate and he had seemed so amazing that her usual cautiousness was completely eliminated, and she had felt like she was losing herself to this new person, and to the world and the walls she had created for and around herself. He had truly loved her so much, and she could always feel it when she was with him, but when it had ended she felt like there was no way she could recover and that she shouldn't be so torn up by something that didn't last very long. She felt that she had lost her composure for good.

Siren used to be the kind of person who put everything into everything she did, even though it tended to tire her out and make sure that she never had any spare time whatsoever. That had changed drastically after she had put everything into her and Hayate's relationship, and had it thrown back in her face, like most other times similar, yet less serious, things like this had happened.

There had only been one other time when she had gotten feelings for someone and been left alone after it all fell apart within moments. She had liked a guy in high school, just before she had met Renji (which is actually what the bullies he saved her from were teasing her about) and he had invited her to his place after she had told him her feelings and unknown to her, he had organised a large party and invited half the school to it. She had been walking around, trying to find him, only to see that he was telling all his group about what she had done when she'd confessed to him, and then kissed an older looking girl sitting on his lap.

At school, the Monday after the party, the whole school was talking about how she had run out of the party, crying and upset over what had happened, and she had decided to leave half-way through the day, when she was supposed to be in class, and go home, planning to never return to the school again. She had come across three of the friends that had been at the party and they had starting telling her that a tomboy like her would never get any attention from guys since she already looked like one. If Renji hadn't been there, she doubted that she would be where she was today. He had always been her saviour.

Her strong will had always failed her when something like this was brought up and she recalled how her eyes had stung with tears as they had taunted her, and pushed her against the wall...

_As she walked through the halls, as briskly as possible, trying so desperately hard not to cry until she at least got out of the school, for the sake of her pride and composure, she even went the long and less used way around the school to the front gate in hope that she wouldn't run into anyone since class had already started._

_Her feet and the vague sound of teachers and students talking were the only sounds she could hear, until she turned into another corridor and kept her head down until she began to hear chuckling and laughing from around the corner. She put her head back down, almost trying to blend into the background in hope that whoever was there wouldn't pay her any attention._

_"Hey! You're that girl, Tetsuya! The one that confessed to Katashi!" one of the people said, distinctively being a young male, and she bit her lip in frustration that it just had to be someone that knew about it, even though the whole school did by now._

_They sped up, and so did she, but they were taller, and had longer legs, therefore they covered ground a bit quickly than she did, and she refused to blatantly run away from them, again for her pride, and they momentarily surrounded her, stopping her from continuing on her path._

_"You really think that any guy would want you? You already look more like a boy than a girl!" one of them taunted, and her chin dropped to her chest as she stood still, with her arms at her sides._

_"Maybe if you showed some flesh and acted like a girl then you would get some attention from the guys!" another said, pulling on her school shirt, tearing a few buttons off._

_"Don't!" she yelled loudly, her voice wavering as she tried not to cry, as she tried to be strong in front of them, and tried to wrap her shirt around to cover her more._

_"Aw, are you going to cry? Cry and run away like you did when you realised that Katashi didn't care about you or your stupid little confession in the slightest?" the third said and shoved her harshly against the wall, making her back and head ache with the pain of the impact._

_"Do you think we should show her what she should do for some attention?" the second chuckled darkly, making her tears fall down her cheeks and her body shake with the gravity of his words._

_"That sounds like the right thing to do. Then maybe she will realise that only pretty girls get attention!" the first began to chuckle just as darkly and they loomed over her and she shut her eyes so tightly that it hurt until she didn't feel anything for a moment and heard someone sigh loudly and then there was several_ _groans and thuds._

_She looked up to see a tall, well-built male in front of her and the three guys on the ground in front of her. He had fiery red hair which spiked up in all directions from his ponytail and his dark eyes looked absolutely furious as he glared down at the three, very angry guys. They got back up and dusted themselves off before facing off against the lone guy._

_"Who do you think you are, Abarai?" the third spoke up first, his face contorted with anger._

_"There's three of us and one of you. I hope you know that all three of us will make you pay for that." the first hissed at the guy apparently named Abarai, who was about as big and tall as one and a half of him combined._

_Ika didn't want him to get hurt for her sake, and she went to speak but her voice broke and she only made a quiet whimper as she went to reach for him. He turned to her, a bit surprised for a moment since he didn't really expect her to try and stop him when he was helping her, but simply smirked and winked at her, before the three guys ran at him._

_Within a few moments, they were down on the ground again, completely unconscious and sprawled over one another. Abarai nodded his head once as he inspected them, making sure that they were out cold so they couldn't jump him when he turned his back on them, and he watched sadly as he saw the black-haired girl start to cry and slide down the wall to sit down with her knees up and her arms wrapped around them._

_"Hey..." he said as quietly and softly as he could and knelt down before carefully putting his large hand on her knee to get her attention, but apologised awkwardly when he startled her and she jumped back from him a little. "Are you okay?" he asked with concern, hoping that she hadn't been harassed by those fools._

_"You shouldn't have." she replied in a whisper after putting her arms back around her knees and her head between them._

" _Of course I did. I hope you know what they were going to do to you. I wasn't just going to keep walking like I didn't even see anything." he spoke with a tone that said she should expect more from people, even though he understood why she wouldn't after what had nearly happened to her._

_"I know what they were going to do. What else should I expect, thinking that I was good enough to get attention from Katashi. I'm such a fool." she began crying heavier and the red-head leant up against the wall next to her, and gently put an arm over her shoulders and pulled her towards him._

_"Don't worry about that dickhead Katashi. He's an idiot and so are all his friends. And you shouldn't feel like you aren't good enough for his attention. You're a fool for thinking that_ he _is good enough for_ you."

_Her sobs grew heavier again and she ended up fisting her hands in his shirt and crying on his shoulder, making his white, button-up school shirt wet, and almost transparent. He didn't mind though, as long as she was okay. She cried for at least twenty minutes, and he sat with her the whole time, letting her cry out all her tears until she slowly started to pull herself together, and let his shirt go and sit back up._

_"Thank you." she said simply after a few minutes of silence, except for her occasional sniffing and she finally looked at him for a moment, before dropping her head again with blood-shot eyes that made her vibrant green iris' stand out even more and he smiled at her in acceptance, since he didn't think he needed to say 'You're welcome' for something he would have done for anyone._

_"I'm Abarai Renji. And you are?"_

_She stared at him for a moment, stunned that he was introducing himself to her. It was the first time anything like this had happened to her, since she didn't really have any friends, more or less people that she just walked around the school with so it looked like she did. If she bothered paying attention to the_ _people around her more often, she would have noticed that Renji sat behind her in class every day._

_"T-Tetsuya Ikazuchi." she responded, and she nearly felt like smiling, but still couldn't gather up the positive emotion to do it genuinely._

_"You're in my class, aren't you? I sit behind you. Come on, we'll go get you another shirt and get the nurse to look at your head." he took a hold of one of her hands, helping her up and putting another around her waist to sit on her back and support her, just in case her legs were still a little too shaky. She looked at the large wet patch on his shoulder, then back at him, and he smirked at her as if to say not to worry about it._

_He walked with her to the infirmary, and he knocked on the door and opened it once he heard the school nurse permit them entry. Ika was a bit unsure about going to the nurse since she didn't want anyone knowing about what had happened aside Renji, but he reassured her with a gentle, yet reassuringly firm pat on her back and she walked in after him._

_"Ah, my dear. What has happened to you?" Unohana, the school nurse said with a soothing voice and got up off her seat and helped Ika to sit down on the nearest chair._

_"She took a bit of a tumble. I think she's alright, just a few bumps, bruises and a torn shirt." Renji answered for her, and he could see the abrupt relief in her eyes when he finished speaking and she knew he wasn't going to say what really happened._

_"Okay. Renji, would you mind waiting outside for me?" Unohana asked, but Ika's still upset voice stopped her._

_"Could he please stay here? I don't mind." she looked at Unohana, who more than likely sensed that she didn't just 'take a tumble' and didn't bother prying, but just agreed that Renji could stay, and he simply turned around for modesty's sake, but Ika just wanted him there. He had been the only person to go out of his way for her, and she was so grateful it wasn't funny._

_She didn't want to be clingy towards him, or feel like he was the only person in the world that she could speak to, but he was her saviour, her angel right now. Unfortunately, she knew what those three guys would have done if he hadn't come along, and the thought that he actually rescued an already socially-awkward, shy, kind of weird, and cripplingly insecure girl from something like that was the most wonderful thing she could have asked or hoped for._

_After Unohana had said that she would be alright, and there was only a few bumps and bruises, Renji led Ika out of the infirmary and they both thanked the kind woman who seemed to be more perceptive than anyone could ever realise and strolled outside to sit down on a bench where there weren't any classrooms nearby._

_"So, why did those guys start on you? What were you doing in the hallway?" Renji asked quietly after they sat in silence for a few minutes, taking in the soft breeze and warm sunlight._

_"I've been getting teased and bullied about the Katashi thing all week. Today, I'd just had enough and I decided to leave the school and transfer to another in a little while. I wanted to leave after class had started so no one would see me." she explained with a sigh and a slightly wavering voice._

_"Well, never mind it now. It's over and I'm just glad I could help you. Those fools got what they deserved. In fact, I probably should have beat them up a bit more while I was at it." the red-head replied with a smug grin making Ika almost smile. "Also, why did you try to stop me?"_

_Ika stared at him for a moment before answering him, "Well...I didn't really want you getting hurt just for my sake. They probably would have left it alone since you were there anyway. I didn't know you could fight like that either." she shrugged at looked down at her feet again._

_"Yeah, but chances are that they would have tried again." he scolded her for thinking that it would have been over with before continuing with another smug grin. "And the fighting? I've been taught by the best. Shihoin Yoruichi. She teaches self-defence here at lunch time, but I'm taught privately by her since I've known her since I was a kid. Tell you what, I'll introduce you and get her to teach you as well."_

_"I don't think I'd be very good with those kinds of things. I'm very small and petite. Somehow I don't see myself karate-chopping planks of wood in half." she chuckled a little, and Renji smiled, glad that she was feeling better._

_"You'll never know until you try. How about this? We'll go to our next class together, and I'll go with you to the class at lunch time. Sound good?" he asked, hoping that she didn't still want to leave the school for good._

_She nodded after thinking for a moment and thanked him quietly before they were both disturbed by the sound of the school bell, telling them that their next class would be starting soon. Renji smiled at her and they both got up and began slowly making their way back to their classroom. He would just have to explain to their teacher why they weren't in class later on.  
_

_Both of them sat down in their seats and Ika looked back at him and smiled at him, letting him know that she'd be alright just as the teacher came in and told them to take their seats and get out their books. The lesson went by rather quickly, and Ika was glad that lunch came around quickly and before she knew it, her and Renji were walking to the small hall in the school that the class was taught in._

_Ika saw a few other students she recognised and most she didn't, before spotting who she assumed was the teacher. She was a tall, slim, toned woman with beautiful dark skin and hair, and almost gold colours eyes that kind of reminded her of a cat. Said woman walked over to them, and she greeted Renji casually and talked to him for a moment before Renji turned to the small woman beside him._

" _Yoruichi, this is Tetsuya Ikazuchi. She's a good friend of mine who was nearly assaulted by some bullies earlier today, and it would have been bad if I hadn't stepped in. I'd like you to teach her as much as you can." Renji said and he watched the tan woman looked Ika up and down and nod once before speaking._

_"Nice to meet you Tetsuya. I'm sorry to hear about what happened, but I'm glad that my best student was there to help you out. I've got no problem teaching you, but you have to give it all you've got, okay?" she kept her gold eyes on Ika and smirked when she saw the growing determination in her green eyes. "Let's get started then, shall we?"_

_For the whole of lunch time, Yoruichi taught the small amount of students and Renji participated and also went around and helped not just Ika, but some of the other students to make it easier for Yoruichi. By the end of the lesson, it was a few minutes before lunch would end and Yoruichi walked over to Renji and Ika with a smirk that Ika had noticed was rather customary when she was impressed._

_"I'm glad to see you're picking it up easily. You looked more experienced than some of the kids I've been teaching for weeks now. Make sure you come back next week. See you." Yoruichi said before walking off gracefully and grabbing her bags before continuing out of the hall._

_As they walked to their next and last class for the day, Renji was glad that he had befriended Ika. She was a strong-willed girl, with only one weakness and he was happy to see how quickly she had dismissed the actions, and near-crime that those three idiots had committed. They got along really well so far, and just seemed to click already, even though they'd only met a few hours ago._

_When they took their seats, Ika smiled and looked to the front of the class with a determined look in her eye. Nothing like that would ever happen to her again..._

Before Siren realised it, she had parked her bike and was on her way into work carrying her helmet, and Renji wasn't far behind. As always, she said good morning to Nanao, and Ukitake before making her way to the break room, putting her lunch in the fridge and finally finishing her journey at her desk, and greeting Rukia and Rangiku, and they commented about her bike riding outfit for a few minutes.

Renji came over and said good morning to Rukia and Rangiku and chatted for a minute until Kira came through the front door and also came over to say hi. Hisagi came in only seconds later, just after Siren had pulled off the protective pants to reveal her normal work ones and was removing her bike jacket.

She had tried to prepare herself for this moment, but she still didn't know what to do. Of course, she didn't want to ignore him completely. That just wouldn't work, and it would cause problems, not only with the working environment, but it could also cause rifts between the group, and that was the last thing she wanted. Also, she didn't think that she had the courage to just outright tell him that she wasn't really ready for anything, so that option was probably out.

It was time for her to do what she did best. Sit on the fence, so to speak. After she had stopped being the kind of person who would put everything into everything she did, she had become incredibly indecisive, often taking a 'wait-and-see' approach to everything and letting it all unfold as it pleases, instead of trying to make it work out the way she wanted it to.

Hisagi watched her remove the leather jacket and she put it over the back of her computer chair before she grabbed her phone out of the pocket and put it on her table after fiddling with it for a moment. When she realised he wasn't moving away, she looked up casually, as if she hadn't noticed him, and he smiled at her and said good morning with a calmly pleased expression, and she smiled back and said good morning in a funny voice, making him smirk.

For lack of not knowing what else to do, she strolled off in the direction of Ukitake's office, since if she went to the break room, he might follow her, and he had actually asked her to come back in anyway when she had greeted him earlier. As she walked away, she felt bad. Firstly, for Hisagi's sake, because he was really nice and a cool guy, and she didn't want to let him down and upset him since it seemed that he really liked her.

Secondly, she felt bad for her own sake. She felt like a coward, like she couldn't just say 'No. Fuck you past! I want to be happy.' and forget everything that happened and move on with her life. If she tried, she felt that it would more than likely come back in her face, or it just wouldn't work out and she'd be back where she was before she moved away and when everything _seemed_ simpler.

Unfortunately for her, nothing was simple any more. Her heart was still deeply scarred, and right now that wound had cracked open and begun to bleed again, reminding her of everything that had made her move away from Karakura Town. Everything here had reminded her of Hayate and their relationship and it was too hard for her to handle.

And so, one day, she had just up and decided to move away, in the exact same way that she had decided to move back. That was that. She had let Renji know, of course, and had gone to see him as well as Yoruichi and Urahara who had been a huge help by occasionally letting her stay over and have fun nights in with them, and had been nothing but hugely supportive and offered to help her out with anything she needed.

"Ika? Are you alright?" a kind voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she looked up and refocused her eyes to see a slightly concerned looking Ukitake sitting at the other side of his desk, and she realised that she'd probably been standing just inside his doorway for a few minutes now.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was just thinking and I kind of forgot I was making my way here." she chuckled and tried to brush off the worried look on his face with a smile and she sat down in the chair on her side of his desk. "So, you wanted to see me?" she continued, again trying to distract him.

"Ah, yes. There's two things I wanted to discuss with you. Firstly, I was just going to tell you that I have been very, very pleased with your work. You've picked up on everything so quickly and I'm very glad that I employed you. Somehow, I just knew I couldn't go wrong with you." he smiled brightly at her and the crinkles at the side of his eyes showed his age and weakness, but somehow made him just that much more of a charismatic person.

"Thank you, I'm very flattered." she responded with a happy laugh and a smile just as bright as his.

"Also, I have a surprise for you. I want to offer you a rather large job. It's for the Kuchiki Group and I've known the owner, Kuchiki Byakuya for a long number of years and I'm glad that he's come to me to help him with his advertising and all that." he seemed to recall some early memories when he said that he had known Byakuya for many years, because an amused smirk nearly came across his face as he spoke.

"The Kuchiki Group? Uh, I don't know if I'm ready for that yet." she added nervously, not really wanting to turn it down, but she knew how massive the Kuchiki Group was and she wasn't sure that she could handle such a large job.

"It won't be you just on your own. I'd never do that to any of you because I don't doubt that it would be just too much pressure. Everyone will be working on it with you, but here's the surprise part. I called the others last night, and asked them on their opinions about who should be the one, not necessarily in charge, but just the one overseeing the designing side of it all. The reason I didn't call you, was because everyone suggested that you should be given the supervising job." he smiled at her shocked face and it took Siren a moment to compose herself to speak again.

"Everyone thought I should do it? Why?" she asked incredulously, since she wasn't surprised about Renji recommending her, but she didn't expect everyone else to as well.

"I asked that exact question. Everyone answered in almost the exact same way as well and I feel the same. You all have an area of graphic design and advertising which you are best at. Rukia, is good with simple, straight-forward designs and wonderful with organisation. Rangiku is the best with bright and attention catching designs and making it memorable. Kira excels with animation for TV in mostly all types of designs. Hisagi is good with bold and daring ideas that stick out and Renji is great with dealing with big corporations because he's not easily intimidated and is a great all round designer. Would you agree?" he explained slowly, making sure that she knew what he meant.

"Yeah, I would definitely agree. If we were to do something like this, I would have Rukia organise the schedule and time-frame for completion, Rangiku and Hisagi to concentrate on the signage, Kira for the TV ads, and Renji for the face-to-face conferences and meetings. If I was overseeing it all, I don't really know what I'd do though." she finished thoughtfully, biting her lip and a hand on her chin.

"You would do whatever else needed to be done and advise on anything you felt needed to be advised about. I think that you'll do a fantastic job!" Ukitake reassured her with a laugh and a smile.

"Are you sure? I mean, if I get half-way through and don't think I can do it, would I be able to pass it on to someone else?" she asked, feeling a lot more confident, but that still didn't do much for someone such as her.

"You'll be fine." said another voice from the doorway.

Siren turned around to see Renji standing there, one arm leaning against the doorway and his arms crossed over his chest. He was giving her a chastising look, but also one that showed concern. He knew that she would be nervous about this, but he wanted her to try.

"Well, I can't really say no with all the support. I'll do it."

"Wonderful! I'll let Byakuya know immediately." Ukitake picked up his phone and started dialling a number and she got up and walked out.

A sigh escaped her before she went back into her own little world...


	8. Chapter 8 - Decisions, Decisions

**Chapter 8 – Decisions, Decisions**

"Good morning, gentleman. I am Tetsuya Ikazuchi, and this is my associate, Abarai Renji. I am supervising this project and Renji will be your contact if you need to speak with us about anything at all. We have asked to have this meeting with you so that we can all discuss what you would like us to do for you. So, shall we begin at what type of advertising media you would like to use?" Siren said with the utmost professionalism, that even surprised Renji because he knew how nervous she was feeling about this.

She tended to second guess herself and not have any confidence in herself or any of her abilities, so he was glad to see that she was rising to the occasion and making a very good first impression on someone who had always intimidated him, even though no one else (except Siren, at times) could do.

_Kuchiki Byakuya._

He owned and ran one of the biggest corporations in the country, The Kuchiki Group and was also Rukia's adoptive brother. They had never been on the best of terms, up until Rukia had been in a car accident, when a drunk driver had hit the side of her car at a high speed, and she had been in hospital for at least a month, recovering.

Byakuya had quickly realised that Rukia was all that was left of his beloved wife, Hisana who had unfortunately passed away many years ago, before he had even met Rukia. His attitude had changed rather swiftly after that, even though only those who knew him rather well would notice.

Slowly, but surely, the meeting dragged on, both sides making suggestions, and Siren wrote down and took notes on everything she possibly could, not wanting to miss any detail in case it was something that could become incredibly important down the track. She wanted to make sure that she covered everything possible during this meeting so she wouldn't have to contact Byakuya as much, which might make her seem incompetent as the supervisor of the project.

Rukia had given her a few tips on how to deal with him, and not to be bothered by his 'I'm-holier-than-thou' attitude and air that he had about him, and just talk to him like he was equal to you, showing that you have self-confidence and that you aren't phased by him. Renji being there also helped, as he always made her feel better about herself and he had psyched her up before they had shown up this morning.

As they gradually got through everything Siren had written down for them to speak about, since some of it would have to be decided later on down the track when things started to come together, both Renji and Siren were glad that it hadn't dragged on as much as they had thought, both of them fully expecting Byakuya to walk in with a ten-page list of 'do-or-die' demands.

Yet, surprisingly, he had been very open to whatever they suggested, and it seemed that he fully respected their knowledge and experience in the field, which was quite the confidence boost for them and would be for the rest of the team when they were told.

Ukitake had planned on joining them, since he hadn't seen Byakuya in quite a while, but he had called early this morning to let them know that he was staying at home because he wasn't feeling well. They were slightly unsure of whether it would be professional to let Rukia sit in with them, since she was organising most of the time-frame in which this would be completed and most of the other important things, but they had decided against it and Rukia was just going to wait until everything was finished before she said hello to her brother.

Siren had thought it was rather sweet that when Byakuya and his associates had walked in the front door that he had glanced around as if he was looking for Rukia. When they had finished all the sitting down stuff, Siren had organised for everyone to be waiting outside the boardroom so that they could be introduced and what not.

It seemed like it would be a good thing to do so that they knew who was handling what on this massive project and to reassure them that everything was being handled by professionals who had a lot of experience. Renji led Byakuya and his men outside the boardroom where Rukia, Rangiku, Kira and Hisagi were all waiting, and today they had all dressed up to the nine's in suits and such, so as to make the best impression possible.

"This is our team and we will all be working on our project personally. This is Kuchiki Rukia, who will be overseeing the time-frame for completion and will be getting all the resources that we may need for this project. Next is Matsumoto Rangiku, who will be working on the designs for any signage and the graphic design parts of the project. Next is Kira Izuru, and he is a wonder in working with television advertisement, so we have assigned him to those duties. And this is Hisagi Shuhei, who will be assisting Rangiku in the graphic design process, and will also be working on any radio advertisements." Renji explained and exhaled quickly after completing the introductions.

"Lastly, as said previously, Renji will be the man for you to talk to if you have any questions or suggestions for us, and he will be assisting wherever needed, as will I." Siren finished off, hoping that they had made a very good impression on these big-time business moguls.

"Thank you. I have the utmost faith that Ukitake's employee's can come through for The Kuchiki Group. I will call if I have any queries or thoughts on the project." Byakuya said with finality and a respectful bow of the head.

His associates went out the front door and to the car, and everyone went back to where their workstations were and Siren and Renji began speaking with them about what was discussed while Byakuya and Rukia had a quick chat. Everyone tried to block it out, but secretly (quite obviously to each of them) they were all trying to hear what was said.

Mostly it was just 'How are you?', 'How's business going?' kind of things, but Siren could tell that even though they didn't really know what to say to each other, they were pleased to see that the other was doing well. It added quite a nice touch to the start of the day, which was Friday, and seemed to put Rukia in a wonderful mood.

As the day went on, it was around the time where people started disappearing for half an hour or so to eat something and have their lunch break. Today, Siren had decided to sit outside, so that Hisagi wouldn't be able to find her so easily if he wanted to. She was still fence-sitting, but she had made up her mind on something, and that was that she didn't think she was ready yet.

So she'd been talking to him like normal, laughing and just conversing about impersonal things, acting like nothing had changed, but she knew that the very second no one was around, that friendly aura would change into something a little more direct and intimate, and that's what she was trying to avoid.

"Hey stranger." she heard a voice say and every muscle in her body, even ones she didn't know existed, tensed up as if she had gone into a rigor mortis state. It was the very person she was trying to avoid.

"Sup?" she replied with a funny, high-pitched voice, acting casually, as per the usual and not even turning her head to look at him yet since her expression was one of pure shock and worry.

"I wanted to talk with you." he said and she heard his footsteps coming up behind her, and then she saw with her peripheral vision, him sitting down on the small bench next to her. "H-have I done something to scare you away from me?" he asked her quietly, with a slightly defeated voice.

Her shoulder slumped, her chin dropped to her chest and she exhaled knowing that she'd have to face the music now. She couldn't pretend any longer, and she felt bad enough for not being straight-forward with him as soon as she'd felt that she wasn't ready yet. She felt like a fucking coward.

"No." she answered in a whisper, shaking her head. "You have done anything to scare me. It's...it's just me. I've got issues that I haven't been able to deal with yet, and I'm worried that I'm not ready yet. I don't know what to do..."

"Talk to me about it." he encouraged, wanting her to open up to him.

After a deep breath, she began to speak. She told him about how she'd met Hayate, how things had developed between them and eventually fallen apart in the space of a few minutes. She told him how she had finally had enough of being around the things that reminded her of him, and had moved away, despite Renji's telling her not to.

The young woman told him about how much she had hated her new job, and her new apartment and how she had nearly been robbed twice when she was walking home from getting groceries at night, but she had just beaten up the culprits and left them on the pavement to bleed. She explained how she moved back and felt ready to start her life over and see where things took her, and that she hadn't expected _this_ , something romantic in other words, to come along any time soon.

When she had finished, she was so worried that Hisagi might be upset, or angry, thinking she might have led him on or something, but he just sat there, a small understanding smile on his face. He looked at her and nodded, letting her know that he was okay with it.

"I understand. I won't say that it doesn't suck, but the last thing I want to do is make you feel uncomfortable or force you into anything. So, just recover at your own pace and let me know if you feel like trying again later, okay? Until then, let's just be friends and enjoy that." he said sagely, and she was shocked at how understanding he was being. It made her really happy to know what he wasn't upset or angry at her.

"Thank you. I really appreciate that." she looked at him with a relieved expression and he smiled before, if a little hesitantly, leaning in and kissing her cheek gently, then getting up and going back inside, holding the door open for her as she followed him.

She went back to the break room and put her empty container back in the fridge, so she could take it home and bring her lunch for tomorrow in it, as she usually did and she stood at the counter for a moment while she finished her cup of coffee. When she turned around to walk towards the door, ready to go back and start working again, Renji was blocking her way, and he didn't look too happy.

"I know what you did, Tetsuya Ikazuchi." he spoke with an eerie voice and her eyes went wide and she looked from side to side to see how she could try and escape. Renji simply shook his head and she stopped trying. "Why are you acting like such a weakling? I thought you'd grown stronger than that." he asked demanding her to answer.

"What do you mean? What in the world are you talking about Aka-Pine?" she acted as if she didn't know what he was talking about but deep down, she knew exactly what he was referring to. Hisagi must have told him what happened, or he probably just noticed Hisagi's mood change, and been smart enough to figure it out for himself.

"You know exactly what I mean." he commanded her to drop the act, and for the second time that day, her shoulders slumped, her chin dropped to her chest and she exhaled in defeat.

"Yes, I know. I just don't want to get in too deep and possibly mess things up because I'm so neurotic. You know what I mean. I thought it would be better to let him know sooner rather than later about my issues." she retorted, trying to explain to him that she thought it was the best thing to do at the time.

"I understand that well enough, but how are you going to get over your past if you don't move forward?" he responded, not missing a beat with her, no surprises there. She averted her eyes, thinking over what he had said. "That's all I'm saying for the moment. You do whatever you want, but I think that there's another way." he spoke with finality and walked back to his desk.

The girls green eyes stayed unfocused as she stood in the same spot in the break room for at least the next twenty minutes, before she went back to her desk and tried to do some work, thanking the stars that it was Friday...

* * *

Siren was riding home, and unfortunately it had started to rain just before she had finished work. Luckily, she was wearing her wet-weather pants to protect her work pants, her leather jacket, gloves and helmet were keeping her mostly dry.

The rain got slowly heavier as she got closer to home, and she was relieved when she got into the undercover parking lot so she was out of the rain. She took off her wet riding gear and shook it off a little before she made her way to the elevator. As the doors opened, and she stepped inside and turned around, she saw that her bike was parked exactly where it was when she had taken Hisagi for a ride on it.

She was starting to get a bit cranky with herself for being such a fool earlier, and she had realised over the course of the day that Renji was right. She shouldn't have pushed him away, she should have told him what the problem was, and let him help her through it. But of course, as always she took the wrong turn and went to a little place called Cowardice.

It had been troubling her all day, but as she unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside, she wondered how Hisagi was taking now that he'd had a while to think about it. She wondered whether he was okay and he understood when she told him, but then started to second-guess her motives and think that it might have been his fault that she pushed him away. She wondered whether he hated her now, and that thought scared the hell out of her. Her heart dropped at the idea that he might dislike her, or think she was a fickle and untrustworthy person. And that was it.

She dropped her riding gear on the floor, ran to her bedroom and tore off her work clothes and threw on some more casual clothes, grabbed her car keys and shut her door before she bolted back down to the parking lot with everything she had. The engine roared to life after she unlocked it and jumped inside, and turned the keys in the ignition, and she swiftly reversed out of the parking spot and drove straight out of the lot exit and in the direction of Hisagi's place.

When she got there, she didn't know if they had a similar underground or undercover parking area as her building did, so she parked on the other side of the road, locked the car, and ran over to the front door in the pouring rain, which soaked her clothes through within a matter of seconds.

The speaker box was only just slightly undercover so she still got wet as she scrolled down with her eyes trying to find 'Hisagi Shuhei' on the list somewhere. He was number 6 and she pressed the buzzer, hoping to...something that he would be there and that he would answer. After a few seconds of waiting, her hope was restored...kind of.

"Hello? Who is it?" his smooth voice, slightly cracked by the low-quality speaker washed over her like the rain still was and she paused for a moment before deciding what to say.

"Um, it's Siren. Could...could I come up?" she managed to stutter out and it seemed like everything around her stopped for a moment while she waited for an answer.

"...Of course, I'd love you to." he answered and she laughed happily before going through the door, and running up the stairs, not even bothering to wait for the elevator, up to his room and his door was already open with him waiting for her just inside.

He saw how soaked she was and he smiled and tilted his head in gesture for her to come in, since she was still standing at the top of the stairs, several metres away from him. She walked over to his front door, her shoes squeaking as they were filled with water and the black-haired girl only just realised how soaked she was. She took of her shoes and socks, horrified at how wet they were and sighed before she continued towards Hisagi's door.

She realised that he'd disappeared for a second, but he popped out from behind a corner and handed her a few towels for her to dry herself off with. She thanked him briefly and bent over so all her hair was hanging freely and rubbed it with a towel and then stood back up and Hisagi chuckled for a moment over how her hair had gone everywhere.

As she dried herself off a little more, he watched her worried expression and he had a feeling that he knew why she was here. She eventually turned to him, one towel under her feet, one over her head and the other over her shoulders. Siren tried to smile, but it didn't really work and he just looked at her for a moment before speaking.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, in a serious voice.

"Sorry..." she replied so quietly that he barely heard it over the sound of the rain. Her hair was covering most of her face, and he could only just see her mouth move and reassure him that she actually said what he thought she did.

He sighed softly, knowing what she was talking about straight away. Sure, he was a bit upset about it, but since he liked her so much, the last thing he wanted to do was go too quickly for her, and scare her off, or just turn her off him altogether.

"Oi, you don't have anything to apologise for. I already told you that I understand and that I don't want you forcing yourself into anything. Seriously." he responded quietly, not wanting her to be upset any longer.

"But-...I'm...I'm just s-scared." she finally stuttered out, and tears that she had held in for so long rolled down her already rain-drenched cheeks.

Hisagi froze, a bit clueless as to what he should do. He didn't know whether hugging her would make her feel uncomfortable, but he wanted to comfort. After seeing the first tear fall onto the floor, he flung his arms around her and pulled her close to him, letting her cry on his shoulder, her still wet clothes and body making his own damp, but that was the last of either of their worries.

After about 10 minutes of letting all her pent up sadness, sorrow, worry and every other negative emotion she had felt for a very long time, she realised how soaked she had made Hisagi now, and stepped back, feeling a little silly and she scratched the back of her head sheepishly and chuckled once, rather awkwardly.

"Sorry. I may as well have just dragged you out into the pouring rain." she tried to smile, hoping to lighten the mood a little, but it didn't work too well.

"You don't have to apologise for that either. I just hope you feel like you have a little less weight on your shoulders now." he said, looking down at the small patch on his shirt that came up to just about where Siren's head was level with and was a little wider than she was.

"Look at the mess I've made. There's water everywhere. Do you have any paper towel that I can wipe up the rest of the water with?" she asked, looking at the several puddles at their feet, before sneezing twice.

"I don't really care. You can just leave it there." he shrugged nonchalantly. His apartment was rather tidy, but only because he cleaned up on Friday afternoons so it would be mostly clean for the weekend and then most of next week.

"I'm not leaving massive puddles on the floor." she said and spied a roll of paper towel on the kitchen counter and grabbed it before cleaning up the mess and putting the rubbish in the bin before standing there, feeling a little awkward. "Well, I'll leave you to it. I've already made enough of a mess of things for one day, I think." she tried to smile as if she was making a joke, but she was being mostly serious and couldn't really pull it off.

"You should stay for a while. It's Friday, it's raining. Let's just chill out and watch some movies or something. I could use some company." he grinned with hope and was glad when she laughed a little.

"Okay. That sounds pretty good right now actually." she replied with a small, pleased smile, feeling happy that he still wanted to be around her even though now they were just trying to be 'friends'.

"Come and get some warm clothes on, I'm sure you don't want to be getting sick now that we've got Byakuya's project to work on. You can have a shower if you want. I don't mind." he said walking over to his bathroom and gesturing for her to go inside.

"That'd probably go down pretty good right now. Are you sure you don't mind? I don't have any clean clothes either..." she stopped walking in the middle of the room and thought about what she could do.

"Here, just use these. I'll dry your clothes in the meantime." he was holding out one of his shirts, a faded dark grey colour and a simple pair of shorts, that would end up falling past her knees, since he was a fair bit taller than she was.

"Thank you." she smiled at him and took the clothes from his hands and shut the bathroom door behind her and sighed. She didn't know how this was going to turn out, but she had a feeling that the sexual tension would be difficult to work around, especially since she was currently undressing in his bathroom and going to use his shower, and then change into _his_ clothes.

Either way, she was still extremely happy that he wasn't angry with her and was more than happy to hang out with her. She felt that having the reassurance that he was okay with it would make her feel much better. Hopefully, she'd be able to get past her problems and maybe continue where they left off at some point, though she had a feeling that it would happen very soon, if it did happen.

Hisagi was currently sitting on his couch, setting up a two player game on his game console so it would be ready when Siren got out of the shower and was dressed in nice, warm clothes. He had also taken off his clothes that were dampened slightly and put on a tight-fitting white singlet, and a pair of white pin-striped ¾ shorts.

When the game was ready, he decided to cook them up an early dinner/late lunch, since the last time he had eaten today was about 11AM and it was safe to say that he was rather hungry. He decided to cook the dish that she loved last time, barbecue pork with noodles and by the time she walked out, wearing his baggy T-shirt that looked more like a dress with sleeves and his shorts that just covered her knees, he briefly wondered what he got himself into for asking her to stay and hang out, since she looked absolutely adorable, before she smelt what he was cooking and her voice distracted him.

"Please... _please_ tell me, that you're cooking what I think you're cooking." she said, her eyes looking slightly unfocused as if she remembered exactly what it tasted like.

"Yes, yes I am. Do you want to do me a favour and keep an eye on it for a second while I put your clothes in the dryer?" he asked and smiled in thanks as she nodded her head and walked off to do exactly what he said he was going to.

Siren stared at the food, and quickly snatched a small piece of pork up and went to eat it but got busted by Hisagi since he'd just walked back in the room and he chuckled at her 'I-didn't-do-it' expression. He walked back over to the kitchen and stood beside her and stirred the dish a bit before looking at her.

She was watching him with unreadable eyes, but a small smile was on her face. He didn't want to look away, but he was struggling to contain himself at the moment. He really had gotten himself in too deep. The black-haired man definitely didn't want her to leave, but he didn't know whether he would be able to contain himself, and he most certainly didn't want to do anything he shouldn't, though from the look in her eyes, unsure as he was about it, he didn't think she would mind a bit of affection from him.

The beautiful woman was still idly watching him, her vibrant green eyes scanning his expression, occasionally looking down at the food which he was still stirring and tossing when necessary and it was only then that he'd take his eyes off her.

He bit his lip in minor frustration, but turned away so she couldn't see it, and luckily enough she made a sound of joy when he turned off the stove, knowing that the food would be perfectly cooked and ready to eat by now. As he served it up, she got them a beer each, and they sat down and ate whilst playing the game, and trying to kill the enemies.

For the next hour and a half, they were laughing, talking, saying silly things and making stupid noises as they battled against enemy after enemy, ate their awesome food and drank a few beers each. After they had finally conquered one of the hardest levels, they stopped for a few minutes, and Hisagi went to the toilet and came back to see Siren sprawled across the lounge, turning her head just enough to drink some of her beer.

She chuckled at seeing his vaguely amused expression and sat back up and he grinned and sat back down next to her. A happy sigh escaped her, and she leant over to rest her head on his shoulder and groaned until she got comfortable, which ended up being her laying down, with her head resting on his chest, and he couldn't help but let his fingers run through her soft, black hair as the sun set outside.

It got darker in the apartment, and the only light was from the TV, and neither of them were bothered, or wanted to move from their positions on the couch. Soon enough, the sun had set completely and they were half-laying/half-sitting on the lounge, and it seemed that neither of them had any intention to move any time soon.

Both of them were comfortable, yet slightly anxious at the same time. Siren was so close to forgetting everything she had said previously and just going for it, it wasn't funny, but she didn't think that Hisagi would think too much of her saying that she was going to leave it between them for a while, and then jump straight into exactly what she said she wasn't ready to do yet, just because they were hanging out.

His hand was stroking her hair, and it was so relaxing that eventually they shifted so that they were both laying down on the couch, even though they didn't fit all too well. Soon, both of them starting drifting off to sleep, and Siren nearly fell off the couch at one point, so Hisagi decided to get up, pick up the amazing, half-asleep woman in his arms, bridal style and carry her to his bed so they wouldn't be falling on the floor every few minutes or so.

After that short trip, across the apartment, they were both significantly more awake, especially Siren, who had just missed smacking herself out on the coffee table by centimetres and Hisagi, who had thought that she had hit her head, until he looked down and saw her laughing on the floor, finding her falling on the floor, rather amusing.

They both laid down, facing each other, Hisagi's arms around Siren's smaller form and his nose buried in her hair, enjoying the smell of his own shampoo and conditioner, and just enjoying her closeness in general. It was quiet for a while, but eventually Siren moved up enough to that they were basically nose-to-nose, and it took all that the young, tattooed man had not to kiss her right then and there.

He opened his eyes, to see her green ones on his own and she smiled with embarrassment before he decided that enough was enough, and pulled her closer to him, and as soon as he realised she wasn't moving away, he kissed her with everything he felt for her.

Slowly, but surely, that progressed and it was only 9PM by the time they were both asleep, only the sheet covering their bare bodies, Hisagi's arms still around Siren, and a small, tired smile on both of their faces.


	9. Chapter 9 - In The Skin

**Chapter 9 - In The Skin**

7AM on a Saturday morning was a very awkward time for Siren. Probably the most awkward time she had ever had in her entire life. Not because she regretted what happened, but she just had no idea what exactly she was supposed to do now. Was she supposed to leave or was she supposed to stay and wait for Hisagi to wake up?. The young woman had absolutely no idea.

She realised that she had left her phone at home, and that meant she couldn't contact Renji and ask him what the hell she was supposed to do now. All of roughly 10 hours ago, she had slept with Hisagi, and surprisingly, she wasn't feeling any sort of regret, uncertainty, or confusion.

In fact, the occurrence had really opened her eyes. She hadn't realised how well they had gotten along, and how natural it had felt for them to be spending time together, even if it was just laying on the couch in darkness and silence. They had had so much fun yesterday, and all the upset and sadness she had felt on the way over had been utterly erased by his warmth.

Even though she wasn't confused or uncertain, she was definitely a little concerned about what would happen now. Were they dating now? Were they just friends with benefits? Or were they still just friends who just so happened to really like each other and had slept together once before?

She knew that she couldn't stay, because she actually had a few things to do today, and she didn't want to wake Hisagi and let him know because he had just looked so adorable with his eyes shut, hair all over the place, the sheets only covering him from the waist down.

Instead, she decided to write him a note, like he had done for her when they had fallen asleep on the couch at her place. She searched around until she found a pen and a bit of scrap paper on a notepad, and wrote down these exact words, hoping that they would express everything she needed to say and everything Hisagi needed to know about her feelings on what had happened between them.

_Hisagi,_

_Thank you so much for yesterday. I can't really express what's going through my mind, but it suddenly seems a lot clearer than it has in a long time. I had promised myself that I would try and slowly push through my issues and then hopefully you would still feel the same about me, because I was so scared that if I jumped into a relationship too quickly, that I would always do the wrong thing out of fear of getting hurt or hurting you, and end up making everything so much worse._

_You have helped me through it just by understanding and by being there for me. Even though I know you were upset about it, you still understood enough to be okay with me postponing what we might have had. That helped me realise more than anything that if something was to happen in the way of my love life, that it would be good to have it happen with you._

_Please know that I am forever grateful to you for this. I hope that you can understand that I am still full of trepidation over all of this and forgive any stupid things I might do or say in the near future. I'm glad I turned caution to the wind. I'm sorry I have to go, there are a few things I need to take care of, but feel free to call me later, when you wake._

_Thank you again,_

_Siren._

With a deep breath as she placed the note on Hisagi's bedside table, she smiled, this time more genuine and free of the subconscious weight that she had sitting on her shoulders in quite some time. It was definitely a new turn in life for her, and even though she had felt like said turn was one for the better, as she drove home, listening to a CD in the car a small smile on her face, she had no idea that things were going to get much worse before they got better.

It was just the quiet before the storm...

* * *

Siren was just on her way home of taking care of all the errands she had to run today, and she pulled into the car park to see a familiar car next to the spot where her bike was. She parked next to it, and was fairly certain that it was Hisagi's, but she had never really bothered paying enough attention to who owned what car when she was at work.

So without thinking about it any further, she pulled into the space next to the blue sedan and grabbed the groceries she had gotten on the way home out of the car and locked the doors with the press of a button, and began to lag all the groceries into the elevator. She had run into Rukia at the shops and probably should have accepted her offer of her helping out with getting the groceries to her place since she now had to pick up a few bags at a time and put them in front of the elevator before going back to get the other few that she'd left behind.

Finally, she pressed the button and somehow managed to pull all the bags inside the elevator in one go. She pressed the correct button for her floor, and she waited for a minute until the doors opened and she quickly pulled all the bags out of the elevator before the doors shut. With a sigh, she worked on getting them all the way down the hallway to her apartment, but conveniently Hisagi appeared from around the corner, scaring her with his greeting as she was entirely in her own world, trying to concentrate on the grocery bags.

"I'm sorry for startling you. I rang you, but you didn't answer, so I thought I'd pop around. I hope that's alright." he asked with a bit of uncertainty.

"Are you kidding? You couldn't have arrived at a better time! Would you mind giving me a hand?" she chuckled thankfully and let go of a few bags so that he could take them for her. "Thanks. And I think I left my phone at home, because I don't remember picking it up on my way out to go to your place yesterday, and I didn't see it in the car. I had been wondering why my pocket felt abnormally light all day."

They walked down the hall, carrying bags of groceries each and Siren put the bags in her right hand down and unlocked the door and then they both carried them into the kitchen and talked idly while Siren unpacked everything and put it in it's right spot. Hisagi was smiling the whole time, and eventually Siren stopped and just stared at him as if to say 'What's that look on your face for?'.

"What?" she asked wondering why he couldn't seem to wipe the smile of his face.

"Uh, just your note. That's all. I haven't stopped smiling all day." he answered, his smile growing at the mention of her note as he sat down at the small dining table.

"Well, I'm glad I got the message through correctly. I'm really bad with the expression of thought and feeling. I feel like my life is finally starting to turn around and that things might just be starting to look up, and that's something I don't feel often. It's an odd concept, but I feel like my mind is more clear than it has been for a time." she explained with an inward gaze as she stared at her hands which were currently on the kitchen counter.

"I'm glad to hear it. When things aren't going so well, it feels like it'll never end." Hisagi added simply, and Siren had a feeling that there was quite some underlying meaning to his words, but she didn't enquire, knowing that he would tell her if he wanted to.

"Either way, the only way that things could go bad at the moment is if I stuff up this shit for Kuchiki, but there's no way I could do that with all of you guys to help. I really had no idea you all thought so highly of me, especially enough to tell Ukitake to give me the supervisor position on this. It's a pretty big deal." Siren said, her voice still displaying slight surprise at the result of the phone call from Ukitake.

"We all have faith in you, and even though it's a big project, it's definitely a good one to start on, because every other one that you have from now on will undoubtedly be much easier!" he chuckled, and she joined in after a nod of agreement.

"Yeah, I'm really excited to see what we can all come up with for it. We'll be run ragged for the next two weeks, and I'm going to schedule a meeting for next Friday, or whenever with Kuchiki to show him our progress and to get his input on everything we've done so far. I don't want to be nearly finished certain things only for him to go 'I don't like it', so I may as well figure that out as early as possible." Siren said, making Hisagi chuckle as she straightened up and pulled one part of her hair back when she imitated Byakuya while she spoke, then rolled her eyes at the thought of doing so much work, only for it to be overhauled and done all over again from scratch.

"Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it already. I'm glad to be working with you on something. We always do really well when the group works together." Hisagi grinned and gave her a respectful nod which made her laugh softly.

"What can I say? I do what I can." they both laughed, and gazes lingered for a moment before Siren returned to putting away groceries. "So are you going to stay for dinner? I got heaps of good ingredients to cook up something awesome." she smiled and nodded, silently telling him he should definitely stay for dinner.

"How can I say no to that smile?" he replied and walked over to her, putting an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head gently and let her go so she could begin cooking dinner. She wasn't really sure what to cook yet, but usually she'd start with a basic such as chicken, pork, beef or fish and just go from there.

They talked and laughed while she cooked up dinner, Hisagi helping out where he could. It ended up being a decadent dish and they ate heartily with happy and light conversation in the dim kitchen light. Hisagi couldn't stop staring at her, as the light reflected off her pale skin and the contrasting midnight black of her hair. Her green eyes stood out as per usual behind her long, dark eyelashes.

It was a lovely night, and even though Hisagi wanted to show her how much he was attracted to her, he resisted, preferring just to enjoy this idle time with her, even though they were just sitting on the couch, half-watching a movie, half-dozing since it had just gotten dark.

Hisagi had organised to hang out with Kira and Renji tomorrow, and they were meeting at his place first thing in the morning, so he knew he had to head home before he fell asleep. He sat up, rousing Siren from her light slumber. He smiled at her and she sleepily smiled back.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go. The guys and I are hanging out tomorrow and they're both meeting at my place first thing tomorrow. I'll talk to you soon, okay?" he spoke to her quietly, and picked her up, carrying her to her bedroom and tucking her in bed, even though she laughed the whole time.

"Thanks. Have fun, and say hi to the boys for me. Night." she said drowsily and carefully reached up and kissed his cheek. He smirked sexily and returned her goodnight before turning off all the lights in her house and leaving her to sleep, locking the door and shutting it behind him.

With a happy smile on both their faces, Siren fell asleep and Hisagi drove home and put himself to bed. Siren was right. Things seemed to be looking up after all...

* * *

Wednesday afternoon, after three full-on days at work, Siren was sitting at home, studying the notes and time-frame that Rukia had drawn up, as well as the ideas that everyone else on the team had come up with for Byakuya's project. Everyone had done excellent work as to be expected and she was glad to see how quickly this was coming along.

She had just finished reading Rangiku's notes and going over the few sketches about the design ideas she had come up with, when there was an unfamiliar knock at the door. Renji was coming over, but it definitely wasn't his knock, and normally she would just look through the peep-hole, but this door didn't have one, so out of curiosity, she opened the door, her guard raised instinctively and she was ready to reach for the small knife that she kept concealed behind the door under a jacket. She could thank Yoruichi for teaching her that trick. It was probably one of the reasons she still lived. Her face dead-panned and hell burned in her eyes as she realise who it was.

"Why are you two here?" her voice was filled with venom as she spoke to man and woman standing outside her door. "I'm fairly certain that I explained to you both that I was going to live my happily if I were to never see either of you again."

"We are here because we are worried about you." the woman spoke quietly, knowing this would be a tough battle of wits.

"It is time you gave up this silly 'live on your own' thing and came back to us. We've given you so much independence, but now it's time you take you rightful place beside us." the older man elaborated on the words of the other woman, and spoke with a firm and deep voice, just like Siren remembered.

"Come back to your side? So you can destroy me all over again? I left for a reason. That reason was that you were horrible parents, and a waste of oxygen and whatever you try and say, nothing can make up for the psychological torture you both put me through for years. I found people that accepted me, and they took me into their family, where I felt more valued than I ever did in your home." Siren retorted in almost a whisper, feeling like if she spoke any louder, she would push the people she once called parents up against the wall and scream it into their faces until their ears bled.

"We cannot undo the past, but you cannot just up and decide what you do with your life. You have a heritage, and familial responsibility. That is something you cannot just walk away from." her mother's posh voice still made her cringe to this day, recalling how many things she said in that voice that had scarred Siren for life.

"That's too bad, because right now you are both going to walk back down that hall, go down to the ground floor on that elevator, and the moment you get back in your fucking fancy black car, that it the last that I ever want to see either of you again. Am I clear?" Siren growled, venom spewing in the direction of her parents.

"Kazue, we are not-" her mother was cut off by Siren's next words.

" _Am I fucking clear?_ " she yelled loudly at them both with an almost demonic voice, knowing that their thick skulls might require a higher volume level for it to get through. A flash of red appeared in her peripheral vision from down the hall, but disappeared back behind the wall just as quick, and she knew that he wouldn't have gone far.

"We will leave you now. But we will not be giving up on you any time soon. You will see us again soon." the man said, knowing that they had been beaten in this battle. He had faith that they would win the war though, so they took their leave, and Siren watched them walk with their heads held high, although in the right light it looked like said heads were stuck up their own asses, until they were out of sight.

Renji appeared from behind the wall again, and the look on his face nearly did her in. He had only met her parents once, and it was when he was 16 years old and told them to 'Go fuck themselves'. He could feel the anger and pain radiating off her as he walked down the hallway to her, and she practically fell in his arms when he went to hug her.

"Fuck." she said with a tiny, broken voice and tears in her eyes as she clung to her best friend, her head just brushing the bottom of his pectoral. It was so hard for him to see her like this. She had become so strong and full of courage since he had first met her, and seeing her torn to pieces like this killed him.

After about 10 minutes, she gathered herself and they went inside her apartment, instead of standing in the doorway, and Renji began to cook up some dinner for them both while Siren sat on her couch with her head in her hands, in complete silence until Renji thought she would be okay to tell him what happened.

"So they want you to go back?" he asked cautiously, hoping he wouldn't upset her.

She responded with a nod. Siren had told him many things about her past, but when he had first met her, she played this very close to the chest, and she still did. It took quite a person for her to feel comfortable enough to talk about something this painful, but Renji was of course one of the only people to know about all that had happened with her parents.

Renji watched her as she tuned out and he could see the painful memories flashing through her mind and he wondered whether even he could save Siren from this downward spiral...

_"Akane Kazue! What on earth are you doing? You are absolutely filthy!" the young girl spoke in a loud, yet hissed voice. The young girl slouched as she recognised the voice and tone. "Get up, right now. A lady shouldn't play in the dirt." she yanked the girl's arm and ignored her pained noise and started brushing her off._

_"Now we have to get you washed and ready for when the Kawari's arrive." the black-haired girl received a firm smack on the arm when she made a funny face at the mentioned of the Kawari's. "They have a son about your age and it would be just great if you could actually act like a young lady for once and impress him. They would be perfect business partners, so everything must go to plan!"_

_"But Mum, I don't like the Kawari's. They're rude and their son just acts all high-and-mighty even though he's as dumb as a doornail." she repeated her earlier funny face and received an even firmer smack for that as well as her comment, and she growled at the woman._

_"You will learn your place, Kazue! My word, I wish I'd never given birth to such a horrible and ignorant child." she dragged the child by her already stinging arm to the large and shining white bathroom, and ordered one of the maid's to clean up the young girl and have her ready and dressed for the arrival of the Kawari's before she walked off down the hallway._

_Luckily it was Kazue's favourite maid, Lana and Lana acted just like she should in front of the parents, but in secret played games and had fun with the young girl since no one else treated her like a child, which wasn't a bad thing when she was 10 years old and just wanted to have fun. Lana was American, and even though she spoke fluent Japanese, it still showed through her accent._

_"You have dirt all over you! Were you helping the gardener again?" the brunette laughed loudly at the girl's antics, and helped her undress and just sat down on the floor next to the bath while the girl sat in the warm water._

_Lana wrapped a big, fluffy towel around the small girl's form when she got out of the bath, and walked her across the large, and very long hallway to her room, where she got out some fresh clothes, but before she could dress, Kazue's mother entered holding a garment._

_It was a white dress with short sleeves and a flowers embroidered around the bottom hem of the dress. Lana said nothing but she knew that Kazue would hate it. The young girl didn't like dresses and put up a hell of a fight when told to wear them. It seemed that she was already in a bad mood from the earlier abuse (there was still red marks on the girl's arms), so she would even more stubborn than normal and green eyes narrowed angrily at the older, grey ones._

_"You will be wearing this for dinner with the Kawari's tonight. I'll have no arguments from you. You've caused enough trouble for one day, brat." her mother went to hand the dress to the young girl, when she decided she'd had enough of the old hag's crap today._

_She made it seem like she had a hold of the coat-hanger, but let it fall from her hands when her mother let go. Her mother made a 'tsk' sound and rolled her eyes at her daughter's incompetence. Kazue was standing right next to a dresses with a vase of flowers on it, and she put one hand on said dresser and pretended to lean down to pick up the dress, but purposely knocked the vase off the dresser and onto the floor and the dress, sending water and flowers everywhere._

_The unemotional 'Oops' that Kazue spoke made her mother realise that it was all done on purpose. She raised her hand to slap the girl but a butler stood in the doorway, and before he could see what was going on, he bowed and said that Kawari's car had just pulled into the driveway. His eyes widened minutely when he looked up, seeing what he just walked in on, and Kazue mouthed 'Thanks' to him when her mother's head was turned towards him._

_"Ah, wonderful. It seems that Kazue isn't feeling well, so she won't be joining us. Remove her place from the table. She'll go hungry for her impudence. Lana, prepare her for bed." the old woman glared at the defiant green eyes of the young girl and scoffed before walking out the door, slamming it behind her._

_"What a bitch. It sucks that I have to work for her, but I bet it sucks double to be her daughter. Your father ain't much better, kiddo." Lana said casually, reverting to her normal self, which was a ray of sunshine for Kazue. They both hated the stuck-up and posh manner her mother had and the firm and strict attitude her father was well known for._

_Lana didn't know how they could treat their own daughter in such a way, but I guess that was what it was like for most rich families. Secretly, she was kind of glad that her family was just normal, but she was saddened that she had front row seats to such an awesome and intelligent young girl getting mentally scarred for life by her parents, the people that were supposed to love and care for her._

_She was glad that Kazue was a tough kid and didn't let her ignorant mother's hurtful words get to her too much, and her father's demands and high standards, but the American girl had a feeling that the way she was being treated would cause her a lifetime of hassle when she grew up._

_They both vaguely heard the sound of Akane Miyamoto's deep voice greeting the Kawari's and then the hissed tone of Akane Chiyoko telling the Kawari's how both her and her husband wished their lovely daughter was feeling well enough to join them. The words made Lana roll her eyes and Kazue make a sardonic 'Ha' sound and shuddered abruptly, since she still only had a large, damp towel around her, so Lana fetched her some warm pyjamas and talked with the young girl for a few minutes._

_Chances are that she would be needed in a minute, but she decided that she'd do the girl a favour. The poor thing was mistreated enough, she didn't need to starved, of all things. Without a second thought, she told Kazue that she would come back in a moment, and sure enough, when she returned, she returned with a glass of juice, a bread roll and a small piece of chicken and told the girl to scoff down every last crumb, which she did happily and thanked Lana with the utmost gratefulness._

_As she usually did when she was sent to bed early, she grabbed the small flash light from her bedside table drawer and a book, just read for hours on end until she was tired enough, making sure to listen out for footsteps coming towards her door just in case it was either her mother or father, coming and checking that she was actually asleep, or at least laying in her bed, awake and cranky._

_Kazue always thought of ways that she could escape her evil parents and never come back, but she knew she was just too young at the moment. Lana had told her of the small town that her grandmother lived in, called Karakura Town, and she said that she would like to live there after she got enough money from doing this job, so Kazue had always thought of going there, since it was only a bus trip away._

_It was her thirteenth birthday coming up soon, and she wouldn't be able to get a job just yet, but maybe she could find somewhere to stay for the moment, but she'd need money to get out of there. She knew that her father had a money tin where he kept a lot of money, but she wasn't sure how much it was. As she laid down, reading her book, she thought that if she was going to go, then that would definitely be the best place to start._

_About an hour later, she put the book down, put the flash light away and went to go to sleep but was stopped as the door slammed open and the light turned on. It was her parents. Obviously the Kawari's had left and they were coming to abuse her over something or other. It was a pretty routine thing and she was really starting to get sick of them blaming her for all their problems._

_"Kazue, wake up. We are going to have a few words with you." her father grabbed her wrist and literally pulled her out of bed, making her yell in pain as she could feel the skin on her arm tearing._

_As they walked, she was dragged along, like an exhausted dog on a leash until they came to the upstairs lounge room. Her father threw her into one of the chairs, and she hit the back of her head on the side, where it wasn't as cushioned but resisted the natural reaction of yelping in pain._

_"The trouble you caused us tonight!" her mother hissed, infuriated over the situation. "Because you were 'not well' and couldn't come to the dinner, the Kawari's think we are weak, and they expressed no interest in organised an arranged marriage for you and their son. It's all your fault. Why can't you do what your told?" the woman began screeching in the young girl's face, and Kazue tried hard not to cry, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of seeing her do so. Instead she kept her face blank._

_"No doubt they will not be interested in the business deal I proposed to them tonight as well. You have ruined all our plans. We would have been better off without a child!" Miyamoto's volume matched his wife's and his daughter stayed silent._

_"Haven't you got anything to say for yourself?" Chiyoko's voice reached a new pitch and made Kazue want to cover her ringing ears. She was so angry that she was getting the blame for all of this, and she was resolved now. Enough was enough._

_"Actually I do.." she was quiet, and seemed to think about her words for a moment but kept her face just as blank when she spoke again. "_ I don't care _."_

_Both her mother and father's jaws dropped at the girl's words, in complete shock. As they both stood there dumbfounded, she casually got up, and walked out of the room making sure to walk past her parents bedroom, where she quickly grabbed her father's money tin out of the cupboard and ran back to her room, where she grabbed out a big bag and started packing her things in it._

_She had expected for her parents to be yelling and screaming and running after her already, but it was all still silent, so they must be in shock. She didn't have long and as she finished throwing everything she could fit in the bag, as well as the money tin, Lana walked in the room, and gasped as she realised what Kazue was doing._

_Her brown eyes darted both left and right, looking around for everyone, and without a second thought, she got out a pen and grabbed a bit of scrap paper off the desk and wrote something down on it. She handed it to Kazue who put it in her jacket pocket._

_"That's where my grandmother lives. You should go there. I'll call her and tell her to look after you for a while and send some money to her for you." she smiled at the girl, but Kazue told her about the money tin and that she didn't need to send any money. "She knows all about what happens here, so she'd be happy to help you out. You'll have to run out onto the main road outside of our street and I'll get a taxi to pick you up from there, okay?" the American girl hugged the heir to the billion dollar Akane fortune and went to the back door with her, and watched her run out into the night..._


	10. Chapter 10 - One More Word

**Chapter 10 - One More Word**

_So she ran, as fast as she could, and never looked back at the beautiful house that would forever haunt her dreams, and after a minute or so, she threw her bags over then vaulted herself over the large brick wall surrounding the massive estate, like she had done so many times before when she had tried to run away. She was hoping that Lana wasn't going to get busted calling a taxi, because she couldn't bare the thought of what would happen to the girl if she got found out._

_Hopefully, Lana would leave soon as well and then they could be together again. She hoped so much that her grandmother would be willing to help out, but with the money she had taken, she was fairly certain that anyone with a lick of sense in their head would take her in._

_She wasn't sure how much was there, but it was at least ten thousand dollars, and she had also taken her own small pile of money that was probably nearly two thousand dollars. As she continued running, she planned out everything in her head. She would get a taxi to the closest town, and find a bus or train that would take her to Karakura Town._

_There was a car parked at the corner where the main street met the small road that led down to her former home, and the light with the word 'TAXI' on it couldn't have looked more beautiful right now. She opened the door and hurled her bags in then jumped in the back seat after, shut the door and told the confused looking driver to get the hell away from here._

_Even though she was a young girl, she had been raised to be the head of a large company, so she was smart, but the thing her parents lacked, was common sense. Luckily, she had learned that after several run-away attempts and she hoped that would allow her to get away from that life she couldn't have hated any more right now._

_After driving for a few minutes, the man asked her kindly where she would like to go. She knew she needed information, so instead of telling him to just go to the next town, she asked him to take her to the nearest train station or bus depot._

_"Train station? Where are you heading, little one?" the man asked her, and she could tell that he was genuinely concerned for her._

_"I'm headed to Karakura Town. I have a friend there I'm going to stay with. I just need to get to somewhere that can take me there." she responded politely, trying to reign in the emotion that was threatening to spill out of her via a hell of a lot of tears._

_"Really? You're running away from everything your parents own?" he inquired with a hint of shock in his tone, looking in the rear vision mirror when the girl gave him a face that said 'How do you know that?'._

_"Please, I'm not stupid and I live in the town nearby. I know you make an escape attempt every few months, Kazue-chan. My wife works at the hotel where you tried to stay one time. She told me about how much she wanted to help you, but your parents arrived before she could do anything." he smirked at the girl's determination, and he was glad to help her out. Obviously she wasn't running away for no reason, leaving millions of dollars behind._

_"My parents have pushed me too far. I just want to enjoy my childhood while I am still a child. Surprisingly though, they've only pushed me into a chair and made me hit my head, almost slapped me, and grabbed my wrist so hard the skin is still red even now, today. Apparently, I ruin everything they try and do, even though I don't want anything from them. I hope I never see them again." she kept her voice level as she spoke, using this chance to vent so she could finally get rid of those memories as soon as she was in Karakura Town._

_"Are you kidding me? The stories were true then. My wife said you had bruises on your arms and a handprint on your cheek." he stopped speaking and looked at the dashboard before continuing. "It's only 6 o'clock at night. Karakura Town is about an hour and a bit away, how about I just take you there myself?" he asked, smiling at her in the rear vision mirror, taking her off guard a little._

_"There's no need. I'm more than capable of getting a train. Don't trouble yourself." she replied quickly, even though as she spoke, she figured than making her way there with this kind man in the taxi would be much better than going there on a train._

_"No need. My shift doesn't finish for another four hours and I've only had two customers tonight. I'll just be killing time. I'm more than happy to help you out, kid." he smiled when she did and she thanked him for his kindness._

_She shifted in the seat and got comfortable since she was staying in the same spot for the next while, and thought about everything that had happened. So far, it seemed like this escape attempt might actually work, thanks to Lana. With all that going through her mind, soon enough, she had dozed off to sleep._

_When they arrived in Karakura Town, she was roused from her sleep, hearing the man's voice over the sound of the rain that must have started at some point on their trip here, and she gave the taxi driver the piece of paper with the address in it. Within a few minutes, they arrived out the front of Lana's grandmother's place at about 7.30PM._

_It was a simple one-storey house, with a nice little garden out the front, and she could hear the sound of a small dog barking from inside the house. Her salvation was at the front door of that house, and she smiled, but didn't get her hopes up, just in case she wasn't able to stay._

_"I'll wait here if you like. Go on, I'll be right here." a smile came across her face again, and she felt better with her confidence slowly returning._

_With a nod of conviction, she got out of the door, and jogged to the front door, still getting wet on the way. She rang the doorbell, and what seemed like an eternity later, a light turned on and the door opened to reveal an old women with a blue nightgown wrapped around her, and the kindest smile she had ever seen looking back at her as well as a small white and tan dog, who tried to lick her straight away._

_"You must be Kazue! It's so good to have you dear, I'm glad you got here safely. Go and get your things, and come in out of the rain." Kazue laughed with happiness and hugged the old woman before running back to the car and grabbing her bags, putting them just inside the door before digging into her money and getting out a few hundred dollar bills for the taxi driver, who had been just wonderful._

_She ran back to the taxi and reached in to get her last bag and handed the man the money, and his eyes opened widely at the amount. He tried to hand it back to her, saying that he was just going to ignore the bill and just be glad that he could help her, but she insisted he take the money that was more than triple what he needed and told him thank you before smiling brightly at him and shutting the car door behind her._

_Before she walked fully inside, she took off her wet shoes and sighed happily when she looked inside what seemed to be her new home. It was small, and cosy, but absolutely perfect. It was what she had dreamed of her whole life. The elderly lady smiled at the young girl who seemed to have a weight lifted off her shoulders._

_Kazue turned to her and properly introduced herself, and thanked her for taking her in, being just blown away at how amazing people could be, when all she had grown up with was her horrible excuse for parents, maids, butlers and housekeepers who were forced to turn a blind eye to the occurrences and the stupid, stuck-up rich people her parents made her meet._

_It was only Lana that had stopped her from going crazy in that house, the taxi driver who had been so kind to ignore her the three-digit bill for driving her all the way here, and the lovely woman who was offering thehospitality of letting her stay in her home so she could be away from everything._

_The old women introduced herself as Midori Michaels. They sat down and talked about their lives just to get to know each other and had dinner, which Kazue wolfed down, not realising how hungry she was. Midori had married an American man when she had gone to live there many years ago to study at a particular university. Her only son had married a lovely woman who had been Lana's father. She had come over to live here since her husband had passed away from natural causes four years ago, missing her country and Lana had come with her, since they were very close._

_Kazue told her about her parents and what they had been doing to her practically since the day she came out of her mother's womb, which she made sure to include was apparently a real mistake on their part. Even though Lana seemed to have told her pretty much everything, it was just like earlier in the taxi, she was venting so that she could put all of it behind her quicker._

_There was no way her parents would figure out that she was here, unless Lana told them, and she would never crack. Lana was the person who had showed her how to be strong and stubborn and not give in to 'the sacks of shit that your parents are, excuse my language', as she had said once._

_Around 10PM, Midori noticed how late it was and suggested that they both go off to bed. The woman had been kind enough to set up her spare room for Kazue, and had made the bed, got a spare lamp for her to use and had moved a few boxes of things into her garage to make room._

_They moved the young girl's things into her room, and Kazue thanked her again, hugging her tightly before the elderly woman shuffled off to bed, and Kazue got changed into some clean pyjamas and went to bed herself, falling asleep practically straight away being so emotionally exhausted she didn't even realise she went to sleep...  
_

* * *

Siren didn't even remember Renji helping her inside and sitting her down on the lounge. It must have been a few minutes, because Renji came out of the bathroom before getting them a beer each and sitting down next to his good friend.

He was so worried for her, since there was only one thing that messed with her head as much as her parents did. It didn't seem like she was going to be in a good mood for the next few weeks, and he hoped so much that she would be left alone.

She was really starting to turn a corner, with the new place, new job and great new friends that she seemed to get along with so famously. Why these things had to come back and haunt her, he had no idea, but he was really getting sick of it. He just wanted her to be happy, and he was sure she wanted to be happy too.

Renji nudged her and handed her a beer, and she gave him a look of thanks, being a little too afraid to speak just yet, scared that she would break down if she tried to speak. She downed the entire bottle and put the glass down on the wooden coffee table in front of her with a thud then proceeded to get up and put the empty bottle in the bin before sitting back down on the lounge with a loud flop.

A low growl escaped her after a few minutes of silence, and it seemed she had finally gotten fed up after she smashed her hands on the table, nearly making Renji soil himself and she walked into her bedroom and within minutes, she was changed in gym clothes. She threw him his pair, since they kept a pair at each other's place in case there was some spur of the moment decision to go exercise.

He quickly changed, while Siren grabbed them water bottles and put towels and whatever else they needed into the bag she used and was walking out the door while Renji was pulling his shirt over his head and struggled to keep up with her.

The guy she lived next door to opened his door as they walked past, Renji still trying to get his arms through the right spot in the shirt, probably looking quite hilarious to Siren's neighbour and he smiled awkwardly before adjusting the shirt and getting his arms through the sleeves and twisting it whilst jogging to catch up to the scarily cranky woman ahead of him.

They jumped in her ute and drove to Yoruichi's dojo that was just a few blocks away. Since it was still only early, there would probably still be heaps of people there, and Siren was hoping that Urahara was there, so she could spar with him.

Even Yoruichi had a bit of trouble being his equal sometimes, and neither Siren or Renji knew exactly how strong the weird guy was, but he could take a beating that would probably kill normal people. Before too long, they arrived and parked out the front then walked in the through the front doors, Siren wearing a look of seriousness Renji had barely seen, and to be honest, he had no idea what was going to happen.

Yoruichi yelled a hello to them from the other side, since she was teaching a class. Siren went to leave their bag up where Yoruichi left her stuff, to find Urahara sitting in a dark corner, smiling behind his fan. She smirked darkly and put the bag down before snatching his fan in challenge.

It only took a moment for the odd smirk to fade off the man's face before he got up and took off his hat, leaving it on the seat and watching Siren very carefully, and she watched Urahara carefully, expecting him to pounce at any given moment.

Renji could only watch as Urahara stepped down and Siren stalked backwards waiting for the right time to strike. They moved back to the middle of the unoccupied area at the back of the dojo and took up stances. Yoruichi seemed to notice, rolling her eyes with a smirk on her face as she stopped her class, and told them to move back, saying to watch how the two fought.

They stared each other down for at least a whole minute, and the tension could have been cut with a butter knife. Neither wanted to move, but neither wanted to stay still. Renji expected Siren to make the first move, but it seemed Urahara got some idea in his head and lunged at her.

So it started. Most of the students Yoruichi had probably didn't even know that it was possible for two people to move that quickly and they all watched with dumbfounded expressions on their faces as Urahara and Siren fought like mad, inflicting copious amounts of pain on each other with kicks, fists and anything else that the other didn't block or dodge.

After a good five minutes of solid, bone-breaking battle, they stopped, being too tired to continue. Neither of the two was a clear victor, since it swayed from Urahara to Siren, back to Urahara and then Siren would gain the upper hand only for Urahara to take it back.

Yoruichi continued her lesson shaking her head at the two who sat down on the floor, puffing and panting. Struggling to catch their breath. Renji was still bewildered at the display, but shook it off before going to help Yoruichi with her students to give both Urahara and Siren a chance to breathe. They sat for a while, not saying anything, just slowing their heart rates and moving slightly with certain difficulty to stretch their sore and paining muscles.

"So, what got you so angry you could keep up?" Urahara asked after finally catching his breath, wanting to make sure his young friend was actually okay.

"Parents." Siren said simply and evenly, not letting her frustration show through her voice, just the brooding, far-off look in her eyes.

"Come back to fetch you, have they?" he replied with a soft tone and nodded after she grunted quietly in confirmation.

He got up to his feet and stretched his arms above his head, a look of pain on his usually whimsical face, feeling all the after-effects of their fight. The man held a hand out for Siren and he helped her up and didn't let go until she looked at him and he gave her a small, but very kind smile as if to say that she would be fine. She couldn't have appreciated it more, especially after she had just battered and bruised him, though he had done the same amount of damage to her. They would both feel it more tomorrow.

Yoruichi's lesson was finished a few minutes later and the students were making their way out while Renji talked with Yoruichi on the other side of the large room. Urahara went and sat back on his seat, placing his hat on his head again and dozing lightly while Siren strolled over to speak with Yoruichi and Renji.

Renji had clearly told her what had happened and the beautiful, slender and graceful woman hugged her gently, being careful not to put pressure on parts of her skin that was turning more purple and blue by the minute. She tried not to get frustrated again, but most of it had been drained by sparring with Urahara. Usually it did her a world of good, but this wouldn't go away so quickly. Her normally pretty face scared Renji as it turned into a demonic scowl as an image of her parents standing at her front door appeared in her mind but she schooled her expression almost straight away.

Instead of lingering on the subject, they closed and locked up the dojo, heading back to the shop which was also closed and locked up, but they went inside and made up a nice dinner for the four of them, giving Siren some time to relax, and take her mind off everything.

Urahara and Yoruichi had both been so lovely to her in the past and had looked after her more times than she could count or remember. They had opened their home to her many times before and she knew they would without hesitation, even now that she was a grown woman with her own job, car and place.

They ate mostly in silence, being hungrier than they realised and talked and laughed afterwards, when everyone had slowed themselves down. Siren joined in as much as she could, but right now she didn't feel like making many jokes, or telling funny stories. She didn't even feel like teasing Urahara as much, which usually cheered her up a little.

Soon enough, Siren felt like going home and just having an early night. Renji went with her, knowing that she would want him to stay, just in case she broke down. It was dark in her apartment when they got back and Siren turned some lights on while Renji carried their gym bag inside, placing it down next to the couch.

They both had a shower, and Renji watched a movie while Siren sat next to her, staring at the TV, but not paying any attention to it, nor speaking before grabbing a pillow off her bed, and getting him a spare blanket to curl up on her lounge with. He gave her a big hug, which she returned with earnest, and even though she sniffled a little, she didn't cry.

They said goodnight and Renji watched a bit more TV before turning it off and quietly walking over to Siren's bedroom and placing his ear against the closed door, just to make sure she was okay. He didn't hear any crying or sniffling, so he guessed she was asleep.

He returned to his spot on the lounge, soon falling into a dreamless sleep. Meanwhile, Siren tossed and turned, faceless shadows and demons haunting her rest...

* * *

Renji woke up to the sound of a song being played not to far from his ears. It startled him, so he quickly moved to find the source. Siren had left her phone out on the table, and it was her alarm going off. He silenced it straight away, hoping the sound didn't disturb her, since he wanted her to get a good sleep, even if it meant she was out cold until midday. It was Saturday now so they didn't have anywhere to be, and Renji had stayed at Siren's every night, being worried about her.

He stretched as his heart rate slowed, still reeling from the sudden wake up, and yawned as he looked around the room. The red head made himself some toast with a glass of juice before playing a game for an hour or two, only being interrupted by a knock at the door. If it was her parents, he wasn't going to open the door for them, so he got up with a hopeful frown on his face, and looked through the peep-hole to see Hisagi Shuhei.

As he unlatched and opened the door, he realised that must have been why Siren had set her alarm, probably because Hisagi was coming over. He greeted him with a smile, completely forgetting that Siren had mentioned to him that she'd invited him over.

The raven-haired man had been so worried about her since she had barely said a word on Thursday and Friday at work, and had asked Renji if she was okay. She barely got the words out to invite him, but she apologised for her lack of socialisation to everyone, but they knew that there was a reason and just let her know that they were there if she needed them.

Renji greeted the other man quietly, letting him know that Siren was still asleep. He nodded in understanding and sat down on the lounge and joined Renji in playing their video game, but not before looking at Siren's bedroom door longingly.

"Is she feeling any better?" Hisagi asked while he shot a guy right in the crotch, making both tattooed men wince slightly at the sight.

"Not really. She hasn't talked much. But she told me that she knows they are coming back, and I think she is just scared and doesn't know what to do. She won't go back with them, I know it, but she's struggling with how to get rid of them without killing them, though I'm sure that thought has crossed her mind more than once. She's just really angry over it all. No matter how much we try to help her, she will always be furious and she will always hold a deep hatred for her parents. They deserve it. Assholes." Renji trailed off murmuring his insults with narrowed eyes.

"If you want, I'll stay here with her tonight. I know you've been here since Wednesday. Go home and have a break or spend the day with Rukia. I'll look after her." Hisagi didn't know whether Renji would agree to it, but his friend seemed to think it was a good idea for him to be with her, since she seemed to find comfort with Hisagi's presence.

"Just don't ask her about it. If she wants to talk about it she will. I tried to get her to talk yesterday and she nearly put a whole in the wall." he shuddered at the memory, "She will be okay. She just wants to put it all behind her."

"She can't if they keep pestering her. Common sense would dictate that parents want happiness for their children. I hope I never meet them." Hisagi replied quietly, feeling so sorry for the poor girl. His parents were awesome, they always supported him, even if they didn't agree fully with what he wanted to do.

"Alright, well she'll probably be up soon, but don't freak out if she just snaps. If she does, just ring me and I'll be straight over." Renji collected his things and walked out the front door, saying goodbye and good luck behind before shutting it behind him.

Hisagi took a deep breath, not really knowing how to approach this situation. There wasn't many words of comfort that could be given, but he knew that Siren was the kind of person who wouldn't want someone to sugar-coat the truth. It was a pretty fucked up truth, but he wanted nothing more than to help her.

The man got up from the lounge and opened her bedroom door, laying down next to her and pulling the blankets over himself very carefully in case he startled her. He put a protective arm over her waist and gently kissed her cheek, smirking when he saw her trying not to smile, clearly pretending to still be asleep. Chances are that she woke up when he opened the door.

"Hm, it seems that Siren is still asleep. Maybe I should just tickle her to wake her up." he said with a perfectly monotonous voice, though he was struggling not to laugh half way through.

"Don't you dare." she retorted quickly, smirking fully now, though her eyes were still shut.

"What? I think I heard something but I'm not sure what it was. I guess I'll just have to tickle her to wake her up."

Before she could protest or grab his hands to stop, he gently tickled her stomach and sides, and she rolled over and pinned him down in one move, still smirking. He gave her a charming smile that she found incredibly sexy and her tired eyes darkened a little at the sight. She laughed and lied back down, resting her head on his chest and sighing when he began to stroke her hair.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked quietly, not wanting to push too far.

"I've just got to figure out how to make them know that if they ever appear in my life again, I'll destroy them with everything I have." she had so much conviction in her voice it almost scared Hisagi, but he supposed he would probably feel exactly the same way in her position.

He looked down at her, and tilted her head up towards his gently to kiss her, hoping that it would cheer her up. Her phone rang all of a sudden, and she glared at it for interrupting something that could have and more than likely would have become much more interesting. She picked up the ringing piece of technology like she just wanted to throw it at the wall, and Hisagi saw her eyes narrow at the number of screen.

"Hello?" she asked confusedly, wondering who the hell this was.

"Ah, we got a hold of you. Good."

As soon as she recognised the voice on the other end as the deep, authoritative tone belonging to her father, she nearly screamed, but instead grabbed Hisagi's hand with her own that wasn't holding the phone. Her eyes were wide and livid, and her mouth twisted as she snarled quietly.

"We wanted to ask you to come to the estate today. Just to talk." Akane Miyamoto continued after hearing no response from his daughter on the other end of the phone.

"I've told you this more than once. I _hate_ you both so much I can barely stand to hear your voice, and I never want your disgusting presence anywhere near me _ever_ again. Are you both really so _fucking stupid_ as to not understand what I'm saying?" she retorted with venom in her voice and murder in her eyes.

"We just want to talk to you. You are our daughter." he repeated himself, and almost struggled with the last sentence, making Siren growl angrily and her grip tighten on Hisagi's hand so much his face contorted in pain, but he made no sound.

"Fine. I'll come. But you will only hear the same thing from me. If you don't understand even when I tell it to your faces, I'll just beat it into your heads."

With that, she hung up. It was a bad idea, but she decided to give them at least the benefit of the doubt, and she was seriously beating the concept of her hating them into their heads anyway, so either way it would probably be okay. Hisagi looked so concerned that her heart ached, but she decided to ask if she could take him along for moral support.

"Could you...come with me? I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty terrified." she tried to chuckle, but it turned into a sad huff and he hugged her and told her that he would be happy to be there for her, making her smile.

* * *

_Roughly Two Hours Later_

They arrived out the front of the estate and the gates opened momentarily. Siren drove her ute in, holding Hisagi's hand tightly the whole time. When they pulled up, she could see a butler that she remembered from all these years ago. He opened her door for her, and told her how glad he was that she was doing well. She smiled half-heartedly, and thanked him before he showed Siren and Hisagi inside, where her parents were waiting. There were three other people there as well, and they weren't the butlers or housekeepers. It was two people around the same age as her parents and one face she recognised.

_Nioke Hayate._


	11. Chapter 11 - The Weight of the World, Lifted

**Chapter 11 – The Weight Of The World, Lifted**

_They arrived out the front of the estate and the gates opened momentarily. Siren drove her ute in, holding Hisagi's hand tightly the whole time. When they pulled up, she could see a butler that she remembered from all those years ago. He opened her door for her, and told her how glad he was that she was doing well. She smiled half-heartedly, and thanked him before he showed Siren and Hisagi inside, where her parents were waiting. There were three other people there as well, and they weren't the butlers or housekeepers. It was two people around the same age as her parents and one face she recognised._

_Nioke Hayate._ Siren grabbed Hisagi's hand again, gripping tightly, and even though this place was entrancing, huge and fancy, he kept his eyes on the woman who looked like she'd seen a ghost. Her hand was shaking and he just wanted to take her away from here, try to make her feel better, and stop her pain, but he knew that it took a lot of courage for her to come here, and he wouldn't dare try to stop her now.

"What the fuck are _you_ doing here? Better yet, I thought you pair just wanted to talk." she growled as she glared daggers at her parents, and held onto Hisagi's hand, wanting very much to be able to blow up people's brains with just a look right now.

"We just wanted to see if you would consider our proposal." Akane Chiyoko spoke up, her nasally voice making Siren snarl and scowl at her.

"No, you said talk. Not proposal. So I'm leaving. All of you can go get fucked." Siren snapped angrily, being pushed to her limit, and turned to walk away when a voice stopped her.

"Siren, please don't go." Hayate's raised voice rang through the large hall.

"Another word from you, and I'll break your fucking face. If any of you ever contact me again, I will destroy you all." she said, beyond furious now, barely restraining herself from punching her stupid biological relatives in the face before burning this cursed house to the ground. She only reigned herself in for Hisagi, who she couldn't bare to show her worst side in front of.

"Ika, I want you back. I never wanted it to end between us, but my parents forced my hand because they didn't know who you were. I was so happy when I found out that you are really an Akane and that I would be able to be with you again." Hayate spoke desperately, and Siren's grip on Hisagi's hand tightened like a vice, and Hisagi could feel his pulse in his fingertips.

She stopped walking and Hisagi watched her, hoping that this wouldn't be something she would want. He was starting to fall for her, and he couldn't bare the thought of losing her when he had just found her. After what seemed like hours of silence, the young woman took a deep breath and turned around, letting go of Hisagi's hand in the process.

Time seemed to slow as she walked over to Hayate, her expression unreadable, and Hayate started to smile, her mother displaying a smug look that she couldn't quite hide. Siren stopped until she was less than an arm's length away from Hayate. Then, without warning, she punched him square in the face, and he was out for the count before he even hit the floor, with blood pouring from his nose.

Hayate's parents rushed over to him, gasping with shock, and Chiyoko's shocked yelp echoed through the large entrance room. Hayate's mother rushed towards Siren abruptly, angry beyond belief and taking action into her own hands. She made a swipe at Siren, who dodged it effortlessly before catching her outstretched arm, twisting it around so that it was bent against her back before pushing her back towards her family where she stayed, obviously realising grievous bodily harm will ensue if she didn't.

The security guards that were permanently hanging around the estate took action, even though they knew that it was Akane Kazue that was causing the scene. They would have to be gentle, and Siren knew that, so she took advantage of their more gentle approach, trying to stop her from moving rather than hurt her.

Within a few moments, two guards were on the floor, and with a side kick, the last one was down, but they had surely called for back up and they would be there shortly. Siren knew this, still remembering what went on in this household when she was a child, not being surprised that nothing had changed.

"Enough! I warned you all to stay away from me. This is what you get. I have taken out restraining orders on both of you," she looked at her parents with a deathly stare, "And I will get three more taken out on you three as soon as I leave here. You will receive summons shortly. From then on, if you come anywhere near me, I'll have your pompous harassing asses in the fucking slammer."

The cold voice coming from Siren's mouth sounded nothing like her normal, carefree, musical voice that Hisagi had come to adore hearing on a daily basis and he was actually quite intimidated by her at the moment. It was obvious that she had been pushed too far. One person can only tolerate so much, and she went out on a limb to come here to 'talk' but was completely ambushed with that unconscious dude that she had knocked clean out.

"I will have you charged for this!" Hayate's mother screeched at her before Siren turned away to walk out.

Siren simply glared almost murderously at her, and spoke just loud enough for the people in the large room to hear. "Go right ahead. See what happens if you do."

Her toneless voice was enough to make the elder woman step back unconsciously in fear and realise that she should probably keep her mouth shut for the sake of her own self-preservation. Hayate's father watched quietly with a shocked expression while helping to tend to his unconscious son.

Siren took a hold of Hisagi's hand again and stormed out, and this time, no one was stupid enough to say anything to try to stop her. They all watched in silence as she left, and Siren hoped that it was the last time she would ever have to step onto the property ever again. She was done with this.

A part of her wondered whether her parents might have changed, even a little. But she had closure now. Nothing was different, and it never would be. She wanted to cry until she had no more tears, she wanted to scream until her voice ran out. She would never really know what it was like to have a family. But this was all over now. They weren't stupid enough to come after her again.

She sped off of the property and made it home in record time. Nothing was said between Siren and Shuuhei, since he didn't really know what to say to her. There was no way to sugar coat what had just happened. Her parents were still trying to use her to further their goals. It was disgraceful.

Instead, he kept quiet, and just glanced at her every few minutes, slowly seeing the untameable fury fade from her face. It took her a minute to get out of the car after they had parked, and she took a breath and walked upstairs, making sure she was walking aside Hisagi the whole time instead of storming off quickly like she felt like doing.

Without looking at him, they went up to her apartment and she unlocked the door and pushed it open so he could enter first. He glanced at her and went in, not worrying about chivalry right now. He wasn't entirely sure of how to react and respond in this instance. It was really difficult to figure out since it was not something that they had dealt with together. He wasn't sure if he should leave her alone or if he should stay to be her emotional support.

After shutting the door behind her, she sat down on the lounge and put her head in her hands. He stood awkwardly next to the coffee table, still unsure of how to react until he saw a tear hit the floor. It broke his heart to see such a strong, kind woman so upset and he got down on his knees in front of her and wrapped his arms around her while she cried.

It was about twenty minutes later that she started to calm down, and by then his knees were killing him, so he got up and sat next to her on the lounge. He smiled at her when she looked at him with a sad face, with blood-shot eyes, and her nose was a little red from blowing it. The smile was polite, but guarded.

Siren realised that he had no idea what to do. He wasn't sure what this meant for them. They hadn't really talked about what was going on between them and she felt bad for that. It must have been tough on him because he didn't know how she felt and it was bound to be difficult to keep hanging around when something like that hadn't been made obvious, or been discussed between them.

The young woman took a deep breath and shook her head. She had been a real ass.

"I'm...I'm sorry for all this." Siren shook her head when Hisagi went to speak. She wanted to get everything out first. "I know I haven't exactly been the best...person through all of this, and you have had to see me at my worst. I want you to know, that I do really genuinely care for you. But I have a lot of issues trusting people, and I get terrified that if I begin to care for someone, that they will immediately betray me. I'm used to it, so I'm paranoid, and jealous and I get upset and insecure very easily." a shaky breath escaped her.

"I do not have the ability to have faith in people any more. I can't easily break down my walls, and it's taken a lot of time for me to get used to being around people for working purposes, because I just feel like I have to walk on egg shells and sleep with one eye open, in case someone just decides to target me for no clear reason. I think I will always have these sort of problems, but I can't and won't expect you to tolerate all my bullshit and personal problems. I don't think it's fair to drag you through hell while I get through the crap that happened today and to finally have some proper closure about my family, when I will be fine after some time to wrap my head around it." she looked at him with such a sad expression, that seemed so lonely it almost made the dark-haired man's heart-break.

"I may never understand all that you have been through with your family, and with people turning on you and hurting you. And I won't promise that I will never hurt you. I can tell you that I would never intentionally hurt you, but it's always the things that the people you care for most say and do that make the deepest scars. I'm scared about this whole thing too, mostly because I haven't really known what you are thinking, but I know you don't like people knowing what's on your mind."

"These defense mechanisms you have...they won't help you with me. It will only make things more difficult. I want to try to help you through everything you've been through. Even just to be that person who can sit down and hold your hand while you scream or cry or just talk. I will try to do all I can in my power to be there for you. I won't say that sometimes it might be too hard for me, especially if I am in a bad mood too. We will just bounce off each other and probably end up arguing." he shrugged, not trying to make unrealistic promises, but he was having trouble to find the words to convince her to give things a try with him.

"But no one...no one should have to struggle alone their whole life. You included. You've had Renji by your side, but now you have Rukia, Rangiku, Kira and myself. Hell, even Ukitake would listen if you just wanted to vent. He invites us out to a teahouse all the time just so we can get along well in the workplace. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, is that you are not alone."

"Akane Kazue. Tetsuya Ikazuchi. Siren. You are not alone any more." Shuuhei just stared into her eyes as he spoke with as much purpose as his smooth, masculine could hold and he watched as the woman before him gave him a heartbreaking smile and sat up a little straighter in the seat.

She mumbled a thank you to him, and he knew that even though she didn't make eye contact with him when she said it, let alone said it loud enough for him to hear it properly, he knew that it was a more appreciative thank you than if she had screamed it from the mountain tops.

Chances were that he was just telling her things that she had already slowly come to realise over the past little while since she had moved back to Karakura Town. But the mind of the pained woman was twisted and anxious about dealing with things that were different to what she was used to. Quiet nights at home, with a video game/movie/TV series and a beer had been turned into coffee with her two female co-workers, Rukia and Rangiku where they talked about their new-found love and gave relationship advice to one another. They had become a movie and ice-cream with Renji like they used to when they were high school kids, helping Kira carry his shopping to his car after running into him at thhe supermarket, a night out at the bar with everyone and not to mentioned a home-cooked meal from Shuuhei before going off to bed.

It was how her life should be as someone in her twenties. She had her own car, her own place and a good job that she enjoyed with friends who cared for her and a love interest. In reality, she had been hung up on the negatives. She had been worried about running into Hayate when she came back to the place that she had lived in for most of her life, and she was sick of running and making sure her parents couldn't find her. That wasn't how it should be.

In that moment, Siren/Ika/Kazue promised herself that she would begin to acknowledge everything that had hurt her in her life, one by one. She would get past it all one by one. The years of her childhood would be the hardest and would take the longest, but she would get there. School wouldn't be so bad as she had Renji with her, even though there was still some pretty messed up moments, but she would also have to get over all the crap that went down with Hayate.

When he had said that he wanted to get back with her, there wasn't a single part of her that was happy to hear that. Everything she had felt was negative. Anger, betrayal and shame. She was angry that he had the hide to come out and say that, betrayed that if he really didn't want to split up with her, then why would he just up and do it for the sake of his parents? If he really cared then he would have made it work. She felt shamed that she had fallen into his trap. Maybe he did care for her, he was sure that he would have at least felt something, but she was still incredibly glad that she punched him. Even if he didn't make her feel as good as she hoped, at least she knew that it would be a defining moment for when he thought of her. Hopefully he wouldn't be such a dick to the next woman his parents would try to force upon him.

While she thought over all of this, Hisagi Shuuhei sat quietly next to her watching the bits and pieces of her life flash behind her eyes and observing her expressions. He really hoped that they would be okay together. He could freely admit to himself that Ika had really scared him before when she had punched the guy that must have been the ex she had told him about, but at the same time he was glad that she was proud enough to not get upset, but to get mad. She was mad because she knew she didn't deserve what had happened and wasn't going to waste time feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she just made sure that they learnt not to fuck with her again. She did a pretty damn good job of that.

He huffed with a smile on his face as he realised that he was proud of her and she looked up at him, wondering what he was going on about. His smile just grew once she made eye contact with him, and his dark eyes sucked her in and made her give him a small smirk in response.

They stayed quiet and not much was said as their Saturday flowed into a peaceful night and eventually slept soundlessly, both of them exhausted from the emotional output of the day...

* * *

_1 Year Later_

"Siren. Calm down. Everything is ready." Renji said as he rubbed his hand on his best friend's back.

"I know, but I don't know if this was the right thing to do." her inner battle had become bigger and bigger as this day got closer.

A few quiet minutes went by and she psyched herself up for the moment everyone would see what she had been through in her life. Over the last year, she had created drawings of the things she had tried to get past in her life. Since people didn't know who she was, she didn't plan on revealing her identity as an Akane, but she just made sure to screw up the features on the faces of her parents. They were easily recognisable and it actually made it a bit better to make them look less human, as the idea was to show people how cruel life could be and how great some people had things.

Renji had helped her set up an exhibit for her artworks a few months ago, after she had gotten the idea to put it on display somewhere. She didn't want to sell it, or anything like that as the work was too personal, but it was a way of getting her story told, allowing people to understand even a bit what it was like in her shoes.

The thing was, with the artworks, it was always from a first person perspective, so the viewer could only see what the artist was seeing. She had tried to give the impression that you were looking through the person's eyes to see what they could see, and feel their despair and sorrow. There was plenty where you could see a bruised cheek in a hand-held mirror, or a grazed arm but never the full face of the person. It went through each tough time in her life, where it seemed that there was no silver lining, no light at the end of the tunnel, and at the end, after the 47 other drawings, there was one at the end which she had a lot of problems producing.

Originally the idea was that she would finally look in the mirror with the perspective being just behind her head, and be able to see herself as a normal person. But she still wasn't there yet. When she finished the drawing, before she could even realise it, she looked at it and saw that she had drawn herself as one of the almost demonic, ghostly looking faces that her parents had been drawn with.

The young woman had decided that this was better. She had used the artworks as a chance to get all of this out in the open, and to help herself put all the pain and hurt behind her and it had helped her express herself so much, but she still didn't feel like she had passed that last barrier.

Renji had suggested that to truly get past it, she had to learn to open up and trust people, and to bring down some of her walls and realise that not everyone was a person who would be cruel and mean to her if she had even one hair out-of-place, to teach her that some people were capable of true kindness and self-sacrifice.

That was where the idea for the show came from. Her friends would be able to come in two hours early and look for themselves as no one had seen the drawings other than Siren herself for months on end, until she finally decided to show Renji one of them. It would be a chance for them to really get to know her, and how she had become the jaded, yet kind person she was today.

She was mostly nervous about Shuuhei seeing all of them. Surely he would understand why she had had such a hard time with life in general lately. Simple things would drive her completely mental, and sometimes just getting through the day was a tough task. Ukitake had been angelic in his understanding and had given her a day off here and there when she really needed it, or just let her work from home occassionally.

The alarm on her phone went off suddenly, and she knew that her friends would be waiting at the door for her and Renji to let them in. The exhibit didn't open until 11AM and Siren had planned to leave before any other people got there so she didn't hear anything she didn't want to hear. Her friends had offered to stay and look after everything for her, and her heart had broken at their kindness.

She walked over to the door and opened it for them and showed them where to start looking. The room was set up that you could really only see the pictures in a certain order and you couldn't go backwards so that way there would only be traffic going one way and no confusiong about the timeline.

Shuuhei kissed her cheek and greeted her and everyone else hugged her tightly and they all said good morning to Renji before Siren nodded at them to go and see what all the fuss was about. Most of them had been a bit aware of the fucked-up-ness of her childhood, but not to the extent that they would see in the drawings.

It took them all about forty to fifty minutes to do a full lap, and to fully absorb all the information and the entire story that the imagery described. Rangiku came out from the exit door first, and Siren's eyes went wide when she saw that the bubbly woman had tears in her eyes. She rushed over and drew Siren into a tight embrace, ignoring the lack of oxygen the smaller woman was getting until she pulled back to get a tissue from her handbag so she didn't wreck her make-up.

Rukia also hugged her, being somewhat able to understand the sometimes lack of importance familial bonds could hold between human beings who only cared for advancement and benefits for themselves. At least her closest remaining family member had woken up to himself in the end.

Kira had a fairly normal childhood up until high school were he was bullied so badly that he had been diagnosed with depression. He was doing fine now, though he was always a little bit gloomy, but he could relate to her about the crap she copped in high school. He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled knowingly, then put an arm around the blonde woman next to him that was wiping her tears away.

Shuuhei came out last, being at least another five minutes behind everyone else. He had taken the time to look at everything with and without everyone else around so he could really get the whole picture. When he came out, as soon as his eyes fell upon Siren, she almost lost it. She could see how terrible he felt for her, but he was so proud how far she had come.

The woman had been through being beaten almost weekly, starved and psychologically tortured all through her childhood years, been picked on all the way through school for being quiet, timid and scared, and had been screwed over by practically every person in her life aside from Renji, who had probably been her lifeline. He hoped that maybe he could begin to share some of the duty and show the woman he had come to truly love how happy she could really be.

He embraced her tightly and she laughed a little at him being so forward, though tears were running down her cheek. He offered to go home with her as their friends began to shoo them out before anyone else got there. She thanked them all and bowed as they left, already seeing people congregate in the area outside the small place.

When they got home, Shuuhei made them some lunch and they ate quietly. He was so proud of her and all the barriers she had pushed through, and the barriers she had let him through in the last year and a bit. They had really fallen in love and it was something that he knew she was finally coming to terms with.

Sure, they argued and disagreed on things, but they never stayed mad for very long and always tried to talk things out as soon as both parties were calm enough to do so. They both knew that there would be incredible hardships and it wouldn't always be as cruisy as it had been in the first year of their relationship, but Ika and Shuuhei were confident that they could push through.

Though life threw them some curve balls, the strength of their relationship and the bonds they had with their friends helped them overcome all odds and Akane Kazue finally learnt what it felt like to not be lonely any more, and to be _happy_...


End file.
